Well does Dr Müller observe that "there are hymns in the Vedas so full of thought and speculation, that at this early period no poet of any other nation could have conceived them." In addition to these verses, take the following hymn, in which the sacred bard rises in imaginative conception to picture what was, before even Creation took place, and when the One was alone in existence that was hardly existence, because with out His thoughts, which are the worlds. "The gods," it will be observed, are spoken of as quite distinct from this great Supreme, and evidently as powers of the universe, the highest forms of created being, acting as regents over the rest of creation. Describing that abysmal past, before time began or the worlds were created, the Vedic bard thus sings :"Then there was no entity nor non-entity;

No world, nor sky, nor aught above it:
Nothing anywhere.

Death was not;

Nor then was Immortality;

Nor distinction of the day or night;

But THAT breathed without afflation..

Such was the Vedic period, as seen in the Vedas. So primitive is the language of these Indian Scriptures that very few even of the Brahmans now understand it; and, strange marvel! the best attempt to lay open its contents has been made, not beside the sacred waters of the Ganges, but in England on the banks of the Isis. It is like the uncovering of a long-buried city. Literature is almost the sole light of history. And when that light-after a chasm of darkness

again breaks on the Aryans, a thousand years and more have passed since their earliest hymns first rose on the Indian air, and four or five centuries have elapsed since the true Vedic period closed. In the interval mighty changes have occurred. The Aryans have overspread the entire plains of the Ganges and Jumna; they have met the sea again in the Bay of Bengal; they have even penetrated in adventurous hands into Southern India. They are separated into little states like the Greeks in ancient, and the Germans in modern

why

This creation took place? The Gods are subsequent to the production of this world:

Who then can know whence it proceeded,

Or whence this varied world uprose? He who in the highest heaven is ruler knows indeed,

But not another can possess that knowledge."

No nation but the Hindoos has ever thus ascended in thought beyond the epoch of creation, or has essayed to form a conception of the Deity when existing alone with Himself. But the Hindoos do this frequently. "In the beginning," says another Veda, “ That (i. e. God) was SOUL only nothing else existed." And then comes as sublime a conception of Creation as ever entered into the mind of man : "The thought came to HIM, I wish to create worlds! and the worlds were created."

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divisions, the Solar and Lunar races, between whom there has been a great and disastrous war, poetic annals as does the Trojan war which figures as prominently in their (between the Ionian and European Hellenes) in the poetry of Greece. The Aryans are now a dominant race, environed by and intermingled with the alien population of the country; and, in consequence, the principle of caste (unknown in the Vedic period) has been adopted, expanded into laws, and invested with à divine sanction. The Aryans themselves are becoming a composite body. The Kshatriyas-at first only the de facto rulers and military chiefs, but now become a hereditary caste-have won for themselves a secular supremacy among the general Aryan population, constituting a royal tribe, somewhat resembling the Psargada

among the ancient Persians. On the other hand, the descendants of the early priests and hymn-composers of the Vedic period have gradually risen to an intellectual and sacerdotal supremacy, styling themselves Brahmans-students and worshippers of Brahm, the Supreme Being regarded as Thought. These Brahmans are not simply a caste of priests; they are a Levitical tribe on a large scale, engaging in secular pursuits, and even war, but specially distinguished for their intellect and sanctity. They are the learned classes of the nation, sending forth from their ranks priests and devotees, filling the learned professions, acting as counsellors or prime-ministers to kings, and as readers and expounders of the Vedas to the people. A hereditary noblesse of intellect a secular priesthood of Mind, more reverenced than any other which ever existed. By this time, too, the Vedas-the ancient hymns of the nation, intermingled with liturgies of later date-have become so invested with that veneration which ever attends antiquity, that they are now regarded as sacred scriptures inspired (in fact, "created") by the Deity. Originally composed by rajahs and rishis, chiefs and holy men, around whom time has gathered a veil of mystery, and who loom in vague and exaggerated shape through the mists of the past, these hymus, for long the sole literature of the nation, have become honoured with the title of the "fountains of light" or "knowledge," and are regarded as the recondite source of all religion and theology. Profound meanings are now attached to the simplest phrases, and material desires or expressions are invested with a spiritual import. Just as a preacher of present times, indulging his fancy, will select for text the wells of Baca, or the palmtrees of Elim,-"the gold of that land is good," or suchlike-and therefrom deduce high spiritual lessons; so the Brahmans in earnest came to see divinest truth in the most commonplace passages of their "inspired" book. In this way authority was found (we believe without any intention to deceive) for social and theological doctrines of later development, and of which the Vedic writers never dreamt.

The Code of Manu is the lamp by which we see this second period. The man or body of men who drew it up withdrew themselves from view, and sought to invest it with supreme authority by attributing its authorship to a mythic saint of superhuman nature. Proceeding from the learned or Brahmanical class, the Code seeks to exalt that class above all the others, and almost entirely to exempt it from the rule of the civil power. It is the work of one who was probably as much of a practical legislator as could be found in those times and among that people. It is a code of theology and morality as well as of law. Its theology is popularrepresenting the general creed of the educated and middle classes, without quite soaring into the subtle and sublime speculations of the select few. It shows us Monotheism, and it grapples with Cosmogony. An impersonal God-a belief not uncommon with philosophers is no God at all to the masses; who, when offered this belief, either give no heed to any Supreme, or conceive a personal deity or deities for themselves. Accordingly, in the Code of Manu, the impersonal Brahm recedes into the background, and the personal Brahma comes forward as the active agent in creation. Brahma is deity individualised.

The

From the quiescent impersonal Thought, the deity of the abstract philosophy, emerges the active and personal Thinker. As yet there is little mythology among the Aryans, but here it comes into play. self-existent and eternal Lord," says the Code, "soul of all beings, whom the spirit alone can perceive, visible in parts, yet whom no one comprehends," having resolved on the work of creation," produced first the waters, and deposited therein a germ, which became an egg brilliant like gold sparkling with a thousand rays, and in which the Supreme caused himself to be born as Brahma," the Logos or active principle of Deity, by whom in due time was formed the world, gods (devas), spirits, and men. The deities inferior to Brahma are nearly the same as those worshipped in the Vedic period. They are the souls or regents of the elements and heavenly bodies,-as Indra, the firmament; Agni, fire; Varuna, the waters;

Prithivi, the earth; Surya, the sun; Chandra, the moon; Vrihaspati, and other planets: or impersonations of principles, as Dharma, god of justice; Yama, death; Dhanwantara, god of medicine, &c. These deities are not eternal, neither is the universe; and "the gods,” created by Brahma as the higher powers of this universe, will come to an end when it does.* At intervals of 4 billions of years, called a "day of Brahma," (says the Code), the universe is dissolvedCreation vanishes-Brahma himself, the active power of the Supreme, relapses into non-existence, and nought remains but the impersonal Brahm -alone, in the silence, without even his thoughts, which are the worlds. This is the Sleep of Brahma. Judging of the Supreme by His workstaking creation, so far as they could see it, as the exponent of His nature -and seeing that action and rest, day and night, waking and sleep, are but varied symptoms of a grand principle pervading the whole universe of existence, they conceived that this principle belongs to the nature of the Supreme himself; and that, as man finds comfort in rest and sleep, so, but in a transcendently grander form, the Supreme finds happiness in resting at intervals from his thoughts (i.e. creation), and relapsing into a state of perfect quiescence, neither existence nor non-existence, of which human sleep is a feeble emblem. Again awaking, after an equally immense interval of time-called the night of Brahmathe Supreme Mind gradually crystallises into Thought: simultaneously creation recommences--as his thoughts grow, the worlds are developed-and another universe exists. The present world, according to the Code, has four Yugs, or ages, to pass through-varying in length from 1,728,000 years for

the earliest to 432,000 years for the latest; in which latest mankind live at present, and of which 5000 years have already flown. It is strange how widespread among mankind is the dream of a Golden Age in the far past, and of a progressive deterioration of things ever since. The four ages of Grecian mythology—of Gold, Silver, Brass, and Iron-have a perfect parallel in the Code of Manu; although in the latter the idea takes a vaster shape than the merely pretty fable of Greece. In consequence of the "illicit acquirement of riches and knowledge," mankind, who were at first "exempt from maladies, and obtained the accomplishment of all their desires," lost their regard for truth and justice, and with it their "honourable advantages," which decreased by a fourth part every Age; so that the limit of human life, which was 400 years in the first Age, is now only 100-and other blessings have diminished in like proportion.

Every

The morality inculcated by the Code is substantially the same as that of other civilised nations. It pays regard not only to overt actions, but also to the thoughts of the heart. thought, word, or act bears good or bad fruit; and by them is determined each one's different condition." The immortality of the soul was more thoroughly believed among the Hindoos than in any other contemporaneous nation; and even at the present day, there is no country in the world where the undying nature of the soul is more fully realised, or imparts to the people such a superb calm in the prospect of death,-as has been frequently evidenced during the present war. After death, says the Code, the good go to Swarga or paradise, and the wicked to hell, where their enjoyments or sufferings correspond both

in kind and in degree to the peculiar virtues or vices of each individual. After having thus suffered or enjoyed, the souls again enter earthly existence as plants, animals, men, or spirits -mean or noble, evil or good, according to the condition of each particular soul; and they continue to migrate from one form of existence to another -rising, as life brings its lessons of wisdom and virtue,-till the topmost round of earthly existence is reached, by the long-wandering soul being born in the caste of the Brahmans-the highest form of that new birth being in the person of a rishi, or holy man of that caste. What next? it may be asked. Swarga, or " Heaven," as we should call it, is not the last stage of happiness in the estimation of the Hindoo. The practice of virtue and the religious rites takes men to Swarga-i.e., confers happiness in the other world, but it needs something else before the saint can attain to that perfect union with God, that absorption into the Divine Essence, which is the grand aim and end of Hindoo life and religion. "To do no ill, to study and comprehend the Vedas, to practise devotional austerity, to sub. due the senses, to know God, are the chief means for attaining final beatitude." But the chiefest of these is a knowledge of the supreme Soul, through meditation thereon. "Beholding the supreme Soul in all beings, and all beings in the supreme Soul, and offering up one's own soul as if in sacrifice, man becomes identified with the glorious self-existing Onehis individuality merging into and losing itself in the Divine Essence." "Thus the man "-such are the concluding words of the Code-" who in his own soul recognises the Soul Supreme present throughout all creation, obtains the happiest lot of all, to be at last absorbed into Brahme.'

Thus the grand question of Hindoo religion was, as it still is, How may Man become God? And its grand object was, to make man more than man,—a most aspiring, and in some respects noble aim, but one very apt to lead its votaries to something lower instead of higher than the level of humanity. Ill-contented with human life-indeed regarding it simply as a burden of sorrow; despising the

pleasures of the senses, and hating them as the seductive bonds which keep the soul individualised and apart from that divine ocean of being and happiness, the Great ONE; the disciples of truth are enjoined to practise self-denial and austerities until they wholly free themselves from the natural feelings of humanity, so that nothing they see or hear, touch or taste or mentally experience, can excite in them either joy or sorrow. In the school of asceticism and contemplation, pleasure and pain are to become meaningless words, ere the soul can escape from its finite individualised form of existence, and merge, like a drop reunited to the ocean, in the abyss of the Divine Essence. Hence, in this second stage of Indian history presented to us in the Code, we see holy men studying with intense meditation the Vedas,- sometimes withdrawn into the woods and lonely places, where they lead a hermit-life of hardship and contemplation, or impose upon themselves ascetic practices of intensest rigour. Anything to mortify the body, and still the mind into eddyless meditation upon the Supreme-that all-present and ever-joyous Soul of being, of which they are like severed rays longing to be reunited to the parent Sun. It is only a small portion of any community that can become devotees; the mass of men have neither the high thoughts which incite to such self-sacrifice, nor the strength to practise it. Even of the Brahmans we must not think that many practised this terribly austere life; yet it behoves us to say that, as even modern India shows, the amount and terrible nature of the ascetic life and penance imposed on themselves by numbers of the Hindoos, at the prompting of their religious belief, exceeds anything of the kind which has been seen elsewhere in the long life of the world.

In the Code of Manu, as in the Koran, ablutions and personal cleanliness are so much regarded that they are made parts of religion; and it also forbids many things, on purely arbitrary grounds, as producing ceremonial defilement. In later times these ceremonial requirements be

came greatly increased in number, as is also the severity of the penalties attached to their violation so that Hindoos defiled by contact with "impure objects" nowadays lose their caste, and are expelled from the community of their fellows, sometimes even being held in danger of hell. The very shadow of an Englishman falling on a Brahman's cooking vessel is enough to make the latter throw away his meal! But we find no authority for such severity in the Code of Manu. Contact with pig's fat in a cartridge was thought by our Sepoys to cost them both caste and heaven; whereas the Code only enjoins that a Brahman who shall have purposely eaten pork shall be degraded:" if he has eaten it involuntarily, a penance suffices for full atonement; and it is added, "for other things, let him [merely] fast a day." Indeed, although the Code abounds in semi-religious prohibitions as frivolous and more so than those of the Pharisees in regard to cups and platters, yet it is to be observed that these prohibitions are exclusively addressed to the "twice-born" class (a very small section of the entire Indian population, forming perhaps hardly a majority even in the districts peculiarly their own) whose conduct was to be the beau-ideal of the national life; and also that the expiation enjoined for the transgression of those prohibitions is in most cases so exceedingly easy and simple as to be merely nominal. So that those parts of the Code where the injunctions are most minute, and appear to us most arbitrary and unreasonable, apparently were designed to carry no graver weight with them than the rules of good-breeding do amongst ourselves. But in course of time the original object of institutions and observances frequently becomes forgotten, and the halo of antiquity suffices to glorify into an end that which at first was only a means. The world all over at this hour is full of such things. And in India, by this process, the prohibitions of caste have not only been preserved in apparently undiminished rigour, but unquestionably have been multiplied exceedingly beyond the requirements

of the Code of Manu. In truth, those who desire to overthrow the caste-system in India, may do so most effectually, and without offending the prejudices of the natives, by quoting against it not only the Vedas, which lend no countenance to caste as a religious ordinance, but also the Code of Manu, which prescribes no such complex development of the system as that which has grown up in the aftertimes.

Two or three centuries after Brahmanism and Caste had been thus authoritatively established in the Code that is, in the sixth century before Christ-there arose a new religion, which totally ignored the old one, and actually for a time supplanted it as the State religion of India. This was Budhism, founded by Gotama, otherwise called Sakya Muni, a Kshatriya prince of Oude. A highpriest of the Abstract, and believing that the only possible revelation from the Supreme is that which comes from within, Gotama paid no regard to the customs or beliefs of his countrymen, and educed a new faith from the luminous depths of his own soul. It is as a social revolution that Budhism is most remarkable. In India, as often happens in a lesser degree elsewhere, a good deal of what was venerated as religion was merely social usage, for the better establishment of which a Divine sanction had been feigned or imagined. Gotama rejected all this, and a good deal more. He denied the inspiration and authority of the Vedas, and with it the popular gods and mythology; he entirely repudiated caste; he denied the spiritual supremacy of the Brahmans; and he offered his religion to all men alike, Brahman and Sudra, bond and free,--whereas, for a Sudra even to look on the Vedas, or be taught their contents, was forbidden by the Brahmanical system. Gotama entirely ignored, too, the endless prohibitions and formalism of the old faith, and enjoined simply an observance of the fundamental points of morality, along with a prohibition of animal food and the use of intoxicating liquors. He knocked off the social and spiritual shackles of the people, and directed their attention to the