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 | | akṣa | This word occurs frequently, from the Rigveda onwards, both in the singular and plural, meaning ‘ die ’ and ‘ dice.’ Dicing, along with horse-racing, was one of the main amusements of the Vedic Indian ; but, despite the frequent mention of the game in the literature, there is considerable difficulty in obtaining any clear picture of the mode in which it was played. (i) The Material.—The dice appear normally to have been made of Vibhīdaka nuts. Such dice are alluded to in both the Rigveda and the Atharvaveda, hence being called ‘brown’ {babhru), and ‘ born on a windy spot.’ In the ritual game of dice at the Agnyādheya and the Rājasūya ceremonies the material of the dice is not specified, but it is possible that occasionally gold imitations of Vibhīdaka nuts were used. There is no clear trace in the Vedic literature of the later use of cowries as dice. (2^ The Number In the Rigveda the dicer is described as leader of a great horde ’ (senānīr mahato gaiiasya), and in another passage the number is given as tri-pañcāśah, an expression which has been variously interpreted. Ludwig, Weber, and Zimmer render it as fifteen, which is grammatically hardly possible. Roth and Grassmann render it as ‘ con¬sisting of fifty-three.’ Liiders takes it as ‘consisting of one hundred and fifty,’ but he points out that this may be merely a vague expression for a large number. For a small number Zimmer cites a reference in the Rigveda to one who fears ‘ him who holds four’ (caturaś cid dadamānāt), but the sense of that passage is dependent on the view taken of the method of playing the game. (3) The Method of Play.—In several passages of the later Samhitās and Brāhmanas lists are given of expressions con¬nected with dicing. The names are Krta, Tretā, Dvāpara, Áskanda, and Abhibhū in the Taittirīya Samhitā.16 In the Vājasaneyi Samhitā, among the victims at the Purusamedha, the kitava is offered to the Aksarāja, the ādinava-darśa to the Krta, the kalpin to the Tretā, the adhi-kalpin to the Dvāpara, the sabhā-sthānu to the Áskanda. The lists in the parallel version of the Taittirīya Brāhmana are kitava, sabhāvin, ādinava- darśa, bahih-sad, and sabhā-sthānu, and Aksarāja, Krta, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali. From the Satapatha Brāhmana it appears that another name of Kali was Abhibhū, and the parallel lists in the Taittirīya and Vājasaneyi Samhitās suggest that Abhibhū and Aksarāja are identical, though both appear in the late Taittirīya Brāhmana list. The names of some of these throws go back even to the Rigveda and the Atharvaveda. Kali occurs in the latter, and Luders shows that in a considerable number of passages in the former Krta means a * throw ’ (not ‘ a stake ’ or * what is won ’ ), and this sense is clearly found in the Atharvaveda. Moreover, that there were more throws (ayāh) than one is proved by a passage in the Rigveda, when the gods are compared to throws as giving or destroying wealth. The nature of the throws is obscure. The St. Petersburg Dictionary conjectures that the names given above were applied either to dice marked 4, 3, 2, or 1, or to the sides of the dice so marked, and the latter interpretation is supported by some late commentators. But there is no evidence for the former interpretation, and, as regards the latter, the shape of the Vibhīdaka nuts, used as dice, forbids any side being properly on the top. Light is thrown on the expressions by the descrip- tion of a ritual game at the Agnyādheya and at the Rājasūya ceremonies. The details are not certain, but it is clear that the game consisted in securing even numbers of dice, usually a number divisible by four, the Krta, the other three throws then being the Tretā, when three remained over after division by four; the Dvāpara, when two was the remainder; and the Kali, when one remained. If five were the dividing number, then the throw which showed no remainder was Kali, the Krta was that when four was left, and so on. The dice had no numerals marked on them, the only question being what was the total number of the dice themselves. There is no reason to doubt that the game as played in the Rigveda was based on the same principle, though the details must remain doubtful. The number of dice used was certainly large, and the reference to throwing fours, and losing by one, points to the use of the Krta as the winning throw. The Atharvaveda, on the other hand, possibly knew of the Kali as the winning throw. In one respect the ordinary game must have differed from the ritual game. In the latter the players merely pick out the number of dice required—no doubt to avoid ominous errors, such as must have happened if a real game had been played. In the secular game the dice were thrown, perhaps on the principle suggested by Luders: the one throwing a certain number on the place of playing, and the other then throwing a number to make up with those already thrown a multiple of four or five. This theory, at any rate, accounts for the later stress laid on the power of computation in a player, as in the Nala. No board appears to have been used, but a depression on which the dice were thrown (adhi-devana, devana,dδ irina36), was made in the ground. No dice box was used, but reference is made to a case for keeping dice in (aksā-vapanaZ7). The throw was called graha or earlier grābhaP The stake is called vij. Serious losses could be made at dicing: in the Rigveda a dicer laments the loss of all his property, including his wife. Luders finds a different form of the game Upanisad.
| | | atyarāti jānaṃtapi | Though not a prince, was taught the Rājasūya by Vāsistha Satyahavya, and thereupon conquered the earth. When Vāsistha reminded him of his indebtedness, and claimed a great reward, the warrior replied irascibly that he intended to conquer the Uttara Kurus, and that Vāsistha would then become King of the Earth, Atyarāti himself being his general (senā-pati). Vāsistha replied that as no mortal man could conquer the Uttara Kurus he was cheated of his reward. He consequently procured Atyarati’s defeat and death at the hands of Amitratapana Susmina Saibya. | | | alābu | The bottle-gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris). Vessels made of it are referred to in the Atharvaveda. | | | asiknī | (‘Black’) is the name in the Rigveda of the river known later as Candra-bhāgā, and to the Greeks as Akesines, now the Chenab in the Punjab. | | | ājātaśatrava | See Bhadrasena. | | | ārya | See Mālya. Arsti-sena.—Patronymic of Devāpi. | | | ugrasena | Is mentioned in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and in a Gāthā there cited as being, with Bhīmasena and Srutasena, a Pārikṣitīya and a brother of Janamejaya. The brothers were cleansed by the horse sacrifice from sin. | | | uttara kuru | The Uttara Kurus, who play a mythical part in the Epic and later literature, are still a historical people in the Aitareya Brāhmana, where they are located beyond the Himalaya (parena Himavantam). In another passage, however, the country of the Uttara Kurus is stated by Vāsiçtha Sātyahavya to be a land of the gods (deva-ksetra), but Jānam- tapi Atyarāti was anxious to conquer it, so that it is still not wholly mythical. It is reasonable to accept Zimmer’s view that the northern Kurus were settled in Kaśmīr, especially as Kuruksetra is the region where tribes advancing from Kaśmīr might naturally be found. Cf. Udīcyas. | | | uddālaka aruṇi | Uddālaka, son of Aruna, is one of the most prominent teachers of the Vedic period. He was a Brāhmana of the Kurupañcālas, according to the śatapatha Brāhmana. This statement is confirmed by the fact that he was teacher of Proti Kausurubindi of Kauśāmbī, and that his son Svetaketu is found disputing among the Pañcālas. He was a pupil of Aruna, his father, as well as of Patañcala Kāpya, of Madra, while he was the teacher of the famous Yājñavalkya Vājasaneya and of Kausītaki, although the former is represented elsewhere as having silenced him. He overcame in argument Prācīnayogya śauceya, and apparently also Bhadrasena Ajāta- śatrava, though the text here seems to read the name as Arani. He was a Gautama, and is often alluded to as such. As an authority on questions of ritual and philosophy, he is repeatedly referred to by his patronymic name Aruni in the śatapatha Brāhmana, the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad, the Chāndogya Upanisad, and occasionally in the Aitareya, the Kausītaki, and the Sadvimśa Brāhmanas, as well as the Kausītaki Upanisad. In the Maitrāyanī Samhitā he is not mentioned, according to Geldner, but only his father Aruna; his name does not occur, according to Weber, in the Pañca¬vimśa Brāhmana, but in the Kāthaka Samhitā he is, as Aruni, known as a contemporary of Divodāsa Bhaimaseni, and in the Jaiminīya Upanisad Brāhmana he is mentioned as serving Vāsistha Caikitāneya. In the Taittirīya tradition he seldom appears. There is an allusion in the Taittirīya Samhitā to Kusurubinda Auddālaki, and according to the Taittirīya Brāhmana, Naciketas was a son of Vājaśravasa Gautama, who is made out to be Uddālaka by Sāyana. But the episode of Naciketas, being somewhat unreal, cannot be regarded as of historical value in proving relationship. Aruna is known to the Taittirīya Samhitā. A real son of Uddālaka was the famous śvetaketu, who is expressly reported by Apastamba to have been in his time an Avara or later authority, a statement of importance for the date of Aruni. | | | uśīnara | In the Aitareya Brāhmana the Kuru-Pañcālas are mentioned as dwelling together in the * Middle Country ’ with the Vaśas and the Uśīnaras. In the Kausītaki Upanisad also the Uśīnaras are associated with the Kuril-Pañcālas and Vaśas, but in the Gopatha Brāhmana the Uśīnaras and Vaśas are regarded as northerners. In the Rigveda the people is alluded to in one passage by reference to their queen, Uśīnarānī. Zimmer thinks that the Uśīnaras earlier lived farther to the north-west, but for this there is no clear evidence. His theory is based merely on the fact that the Anukramanī (Index) of the Rigveda ascribes one hymn to śibi Auśīnara, and that the śibis were known to Alexander’s followers as Xiβoc, living between the Indus and the Akesines (Chenab). But this is in no way conclusive, as the Sibis, at any rate in Epic times, occupied the land to the north of Kuruksetra, and there is no reason whatever to show that in the Vedic period the Uśīnaras were farther west than the ‘ Middle Country.’ | | | rṣṭiṣeṇa | Is mentioned in the Nirukta as an explanation of the patronymic Arstisena, but nothing else is known of him | | | augrasainya | ‘Descendant of Ugrasena,’ is the patronymic of King Yuddhāmśrausti in the Aitareya Brāhmana. | | | kākṣaseni | Is the patronymic (‘ son of Kaksasena *) of Abhipratārin in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana | | | kāśi | The name Kāśi denotes (in the plural1) the people of Kāśi (Benares), and Kāśya, the king of Kāśi. The Satapatha Brāhmana tells of Dhrtarāstra, king of Kāśi, who was defeated by Satānīka Sātrājita, with the result that the Kāśis, down to the time of the Brāhmana, gave up the kindling of the sacred fire. Sātrājita was a Bharata. We hear also of Ajātaśatru as a king of Kāśi; and no doubt Bhadrasena Ajātaśatrava, a contemporary of Uddālaka, was also a king of Kāśi. The Kāśis and Videhas were closely connected, as was natural in view of their geographical position. The compound name Kāśi-Videha occurs in the Kausītaki Upanisad; in the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad Gārgī describes Ajātaśatru as either a Kāśi or a Videha king. The Sāñkhāyana Srauta Sūtra mentions one Purohita as acting for the kings of Kāśi, Kosala, and Videha; and the Baudhāyana śrauta Sūtra mentions Kāśi and Videha in close proximity. Weber,8 indeed, throws out the suggestion that the Kāśis and the Videhas together con¬stitute the Uśīnaras, whose name is very rare in Vedic literature. As Kosala and Videha were in close connexion, Kāśi and Kosala are found combined in the compound name Kāśi- Kauśalyas of the Gopatha Brāhmana. Though Kāśi is a late word, it is quite possible that the town is older, as the river Varanāvatī referred to in the Athar¬vaveda may be connected with the later Vārānasī (Benares).It is significant that while the Kāśis, Kosalas, and Videhas were united, any relations which the Kuru-Pañcala peoples may have had with them were hostile. It is a fair conclusion that between these two great groups of peoples there did exist some political conflict as well as probably a difference of culture in some degree. The śatapatha Brāhmana,11 in the story of the advance of Aryan civilization over Kosala and Videha, preserves a clear tradition of this time, and a piece of evidence that in the Kuru-Pañcāla country lay the real centre of the Brāhmana culture (see also Kuru-Pañcāla). That the Kosala-Videhas were originally settlers of older date than the Kuru-Pañcālas is reasonably obvious from their geographical position, but the true Brāhmana culture appears to have been brought to them from the Kuru-Pañcala country. It is very probable that the East was less Aryan than the West, and that it was less completely reduced under Brahmin spiritual supremacy, as the movement of Buddhism was Eastern, and the Buddhist texts reveal a position in which the Ksatriyas rank above Brāhmanas. With this agrees the fact that the later Vedic texts display towards the people of Magadha a marked antipathy, which may be reasonably explained by that people’s lack of orthodoxy, and which may perhaps be traced as far back as the Vājasaneyi Samhitā. It is, of course, possible that the Kosala-Videhas and Kāśis actually were merely offshoots of the tribes later known as the Kuru-Pañcālas, and that they by reason of distance and less complete subjugation of the aborigines lost their Brahminical culture. This hypothesis, however, appears less likely, though it might be supported by a literal inter-pretation of the legend of the Aryan migration in the śatapatha Brāhmana. | | | kuru | The Kurus appear as by far the most important people in the Brāhmana literature. There is clear evidence that it was in the country of the Kurus, or the allied Kuru- Pañcālas, that the great Brāhmanas were composed. The Kurus are comparatively seldom mentioned alone, their name being usually coupled with that of the Pañcālas on account of the intimate connexion of the two peoples. The Kuru-Pañcālas are often expressly referred to as a united nation. In the land of the Kuru-Pañcālas speech is said to have its particular home ; the mode of sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas is proclaimed to be the best ; the Kuru-Pañcāla kings perform the Rājasūya or royal sacrifice ; their princes march forth on raids in the dewy season, and return in the hot season Later on the Kuru-Pañcāla Brahmins are famous in the Upanisads. Weber and Grierson have sought to find traces in Vedic literature of a breach between the two tribes, the latter scholar seeing therein a confirmation of the theory that the Kurus belonged to the later stream of immigrants into India, who were specially Brahminical, as opposed to the Pañcālas, who were anti-Brahminical. In support of this view, Weber refers to the story in the Kāthaka Samhitā of a dispute between Vaka Dālbhya and Dhrtarāstra Vaicitravīrya, the former being held to be by origin a Pañcāla, while the latter is held to be a Kuru. But there is no trace of a quarrel between Kurus and Pañcālas in the passage in question, which merely preserves the record of a dispute on a ritual matter between a priest and a prince: the same passage refers to the Naimisīya sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas, and emphasizes the close connexion of the two peoples. Secondly, Weber conjectures in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā that Subhadrikā of Kāmpīla was the chief queen of the king of a tribe living in the neighbour¬hood of the clan, for whose king the horse sacrifice described in the Samhitā was performed. But the interpretation of this passage by Weber is open to grave doubt ; and in the Kānva recension of the Samhitā a passage used at the Rājasūya shows that the Kuru-Pañcālas had actually one king. More¬over, there is the evidence of the Satapatha Brāhmana that the old name of the Pañcālas was Krivi. This word looks very like a variant of Kuru, and Zimmer plausibly conjectures that the Kurus and Krivis formed the Vaikarna of the Rigveda, especially as both peoples are found about the Sindhu and the Asikni.The Kurus alone are chiefly mentioned in connexion with the locality which they occupied, Kuruksetra. We are told, however, of a domestic priest (Purohita) in the service of both the Kurus and the Srñjayas, who must therefore at one time have been closely connected. In the Chāndogya Upanisad reference is made to the Kurus being saved by a mare (aśvā), and to some disaster which befel them owing to a hailstorm. In the Sūtras, again, a ceremony (Vājapeya) of the Kurus is mentioned. There also a curse, which was pronounced on them and led to their being driven from Kuruksetra, is alluded to. This possibly adumbrates the misfortunes of the Kauravas in the epic tradition. In the Rigveda the Kurus do not appear under that name as a people. But mention is made of a prince, Kuruśravana (‘ Glory of the Kurus ^, and of a Pākasthāman Kaurayāna. In the Atharvaveda there occurs as a king of the Kurus Pariksit, whose son, Janamejaya, is mentioned in the śata¬patha Brāhmana as one of the great performers of the horse sacrifice.It is a probable conjecture of Oldenberg’s that the Kuru people, as known later, included some of the tribes referred to by other names in the Rigveda. Kuruśravana, shown by his name to be connected with the Kurus, is in the Rigveda called Trāsadasyava, * descendant of Trasadasyu,’ who is well known as a king of the Pūrus. Moreover, it is likely that the Trtsu- Bharatas, who appear in the Rigveda as enemies of the Pūrus, later coalesced with them to form the Kuru people. Since the Bharatas appear so prominently in the Brāhmana texts as a great people of the past, while the later literature ignores them in its list of nations, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they became merged in some other tribe. Moreover, there is evidence that the Bharatas occupied the territory in which the Kurus were later found. Two of them are spoken of in a hymn of the Rigveda as having kindled fire on the Drsadvatī, the Apayā, and the Sarasvatī—that is to say, in the sacred places of the later Kuruksetra. Similarly, the goddess Bhāratī (‘ belonging to the Bharatas ’) is constantly mentioned in the Aprī (‘ propitiatory ’) hymns together with Sarasvatī. Again, according to the śatapatha Brāhmana, one Bharata king was victorious over the Kāśis, and another made offerings to Gañgā and Yamunā, while raids of the Bharatas against the Satvants are mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmana. Nor is it without importance that the Bharatas appear as a variant for the Kuru-Pañcālas in a passage of the Vājasaneyi Samhitā, and that in the list of the great performers of the horse sacrifice the names of one Kuru and two Bharata princes are given without any mention of the people over which they ruled, while in other cases that information is specifically given.The territory of the Kuru-Pañcālas is declared in the Aitareya Brāhmana to be the middle country (Madhyadeśa). A group of the Kuru people still remained further north—the Uttara Kurus beyond the Himālaya. It appears from a passage of the śatapatha Brāhmana that the speech of the Northerners— that is, presumably, the Northern Kurus—and of the Kuru- Pañcālas was similar, and regarded as specially pure. There seems little doubt that the Brahminical culture was developed in the country of the Kuru-Pañcālas, and that it spread thence east, south, and west. Traces of this are seen in the Vrātya Stomas (sacrifices for the admission of non - Brahminical Aryans) of the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, and in the fact that in the śāñkhāyana Áranyaka it is unusual for a Brahmin to dwell in the territory of Magadha. The repeated mention of Kuru- Pañcāla Brahmins is another indication of their missionary activity. The geographical position of the Kuru-Pañcālas renders it probable that they were later immigrants into India than the Kosala-Videha or the Kāśis, who must have been pushed into their more eastward territories by a new wave of Aryan settlers from the west. But there is no evidence in Vedic literature to show in what relation of time the immigration of the latter peoples stood to that of their neighbours on the west. It has, however, been conjectured, mainly on the ground of later linguistic phenomena, which have no cogency for the Vedic period, that the Kurus were later immigrants, who, coming by a new route, thrust themselves between the original Aryan tribes which were already in occupation of the country from east to west. Cf. also Krtvan. For other Kuru princes see Kauravya. | | | kauravya | (‘Belonging to the Kurus ’). A man of the Kuru people, is described in the Atharvaveda as enjoying prosperity with his wife under the rule of King Pariksit. Mention is also made of the Kauravya king Balhika Prātipīya in the śatapatha Brāhmana, and in the later legend Arstisena and Devāpi are alleged to have been Kauravyas. | | | gṛdhra | ‘The vulture,’ is often mentioned from the Rigveda downwards. The swiftness of its flight and its fondness for devouring carrion are especially noticed. More generally the word is used to designate any bird of prey, the eagle (Syena) being classed as the chief of the Grdhras. | | | gotra | Occurs several times in the Rigveda in the account of the mythic exploits of Indra. Roth interprets the word as cowstall,’ while Geldner thinks ‘ herd ’ is meant. The latter sense seems to explain best the employment which the term shows in the later literature as denoting the £ family or £ clan,’ and which is found in the Chāndogya Upanisad. In the Grhya Sūtras stress is laid on the prohibition of marriage within a Gotra, or with a Sapinda of the mother of the bridegroom—that is to say, roughly, with agnates and cognates. Senart has emphasized this fact as a basis of caste, on the ground that marriage within a curia, phratria, or caste (Varna) was Indo-European, as was marriage outside the circle of agnates and cognates. But there is no evidence at all to prove that this practice was Indo-European, while in India the Satapatha expressly recognizes marriage within the third or fourth degree on either side. According to Sāyana, the Kānvas accepted marriage in the third degree, the Saurāstras only in the fourth, while the scholiast on the Vajrasūcī adds to the Kānvas the Andhras and the Dāksinātyas, and remarks that the Vājasaneyins forbade marriage with the daughter of the mother’s brother. All apparently allowed marriage with the daughter of a paternal uncle, which later was quite excluded. Change of Gotra was quite possible, as in the case of Sunah- śepa and Grtsamada, who, once an Añgirasa, became a Bhārgava. | | | graha | (‘Seizing ’) is a term applied to the sun in the śatapatha Brāhmana, most probably not in the later sense of ‘ planet,’ but to denote a power exercising magical influence. The sense of ‘ planet ’ seems first to occur in the later literature, as in the Maitrāyanī Upanisad. The question whether the planets were known to the Vedic Indians is involved in obscurity. Oldenberg recognizes them in the Adityas, whose number is, he believes, seven : sun, moon, and the five planets. But this view, though it cannot be said to be impossible or even unlikely, is not susceptible of proof, and has been rejected by Hillebrandt, Pischel, von Schroeder,Macdonell, and Bloomfield, among others. Hillebrandt sees the planets in the five Adhvaryus mentioned in the Rigveda, but this is a mere conjecture. The five bulls (uksānah) in another passage of the Rigveda have received a similar interpretation with equal uncertainty, and Durga, in his commentary on the Nirukta, even explains the term bhūmija, ‘ earth-born,’ which is only mentioned by Yāska, as meaning the planet Mars.Thibaut, who is generally sceptical as to the mention of planets in the Veda, thinks that Brhaspati there refers to Jupiter; but this is extremely improbable, though in the Taittirīya Samhitā Brhaspati is made the regent of Tisya. A reference to the planets is much more probable in the seven suns (sapta sūryāh) of the late Taittirīya Áranyaka. On the other hand, Ludwig’s efforts to find the five planets with the sun, the moon, and the twenty-seven Naksatras (lunar mansions) in the Rigveda, as corresponding to the number thirty-four used in connexion with light19 (jyotis) and the ribs of the sacrificial horse, is far¬fetched. See also Sukra, Manthin, Vena. | | | grāma | The primitive sense of this word, which occurs frequently from the Rigveda onwards, appears to have been village.’ The Vedic Indians must have dwelt in villages which were scattered over the country, some close together, some far apart, and were connected by roads.The village is regularly contrasted with the forest ( | | | ghoṣā | Is mentioned as a protśgáe of the Aśvins in two passages of the Rigveda,probably as the recipient of a husband, who is perhaps referred to in another passage as Arjuna, though this is not likely. Sāyana finds a reference there to a skin disease, which is considered in the later tradition of the Brhaddevatā to have been the cause of her remaining unwed, but this view is not tenable. According to Sāyana, her son, Suhastya, is alluded to in an obscure verse of the Rigveda; Oldenberg, however, here sees a reference to Ghosā herself, while Pischel thinks that the form (ghose) is not a noun at all, but verbal. | | | caitra | Is the patronymic of Yajñasena in the Kāthaka Samhitā | | | caitriyāyaṇa | Is the patronymic or metronymic of the teacher Yajñasena in the Taittirīya Samhitā | | | cora | ‘Thief,’ is only found in the Taittirīya Aranyaka, a late work, in its last book. The Vedic terms are Taskara Tāyu, Stena, and Paripanthin. | | | cyavana | Are variant forms of the name of an ancient Ṛṣi, or seer. The Rigveda represents him as an old decrepit man, to whom the Aśvins restored youth and strength, making him acceptable to his wife, and a husband of maidens. The legend is given in another form in the śatapatha Brāh¬mana, where Cyavana is described as wedding Sukanyā, the daughter of śaryāta. He is there called a Bhrgu or Añgirasa, and is represented as having been rejuvenated by immersion in a pond—the first occurrence of a motive, later very common in Oriental literature. Another legend about Cyavāna is apparently alluded to in an obscure hymn of the Rigveda, where he seems to be opposed to the Paktha prince Tūrvayāna, an Indra worshipper, while Cyavāna seems to have been specially connected with the Aśvins. This explanation of the hymn, suggested by Pischel, is corroborated by the Jaiminīya Brāhmana, which relates that Vidanvant, another son of Bhrgu, supported Cyavana against Indra, who was angry with him for sacrificing to the Aśvins; it is also note¬worthy that the Aśvins appear in the śatapatha Brāhmana as obtaining a share in the sacrifice on the suggestion of Sukanyā. But a reconciliation of Indra and Cyavana must have taken place, because the Aitareya Brāhmana relates the inauguration of śāryāta by Cyavana with the great Indra consecration (aindrena mahābhisekena). In the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaça Cyavana is mentioned as a seer of Sāmans or Chants. | | | janaka | King of Videha, plays a considerable part in the śatapatha Brāhmana and the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad, as well as in the Jaiminīya Brāhmana and the Kausītaki Upanisad. He was a contemporary of Yājñavalkya Vāja-saneya, of śvetaketu Aruneya, and of other sages.6 He had become famous for his generosity and his interest in the dis¬cussion of the nature of Brahman, as ultimate basis of reality, in the life-time of Ajātaśatru of Kāśi. It is significant that he maintained a close intercourse with the Brahmins of the Kuru-Pañcālas, such as Yājñavalkya and śvetaketu; for this indicates that the home of the philosophy of the Upanisads was in the Kuru-Pañcāla country rather than in the east. There is a statement in the śatapatha Brāhmana that he became a Brahmin (brahma). This does not, however, signify a change of caste, but merely that in knowledge he became a Brahmin (see Ksatriya). Janaka is occasionally mentioned in later texts: in the Taittirīya Brāhmana he has already become quite mythical; in the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra a sapta-rātra or seven nights’ rite is ascribed to him. It is natural to attempt to date Janaka by his being a con¬temporary of Ajātaśatru, and by identifying the latter with the Ajātasattu of the Pāli texts11: this would make the end of the sixth century B.C. the approximate date of Janaka. But it is very doubtful whether this identification can be supported: Ajātaśatru was king of Kāśi, whereas Ajātasattu was king of Magadha, and his only connexion with Kāśi was through his marriage with the daughter of Pasenadi of Kosala. More¬over, the acceptance of this chronology would be difficult to reconcile with the history of the development of thought; for it would make the rise of Buddhism contemporaneous with the Upanisads, whereas it is reasonably certain that the older Upanisads preceded Buddhism Nor do the Vedic texts know anything of Bimbisāra or Pasenadi, or any of the other princes famed in Buddhist records. The identification of Janaka of Videha and the father of Sītā is less open to objection, but it cannot be proved, and is somewhat doubtful. In the Sūtras Janaka appears as an ancient king who knew of a time when wifely honour was less respected than later. | | | janamejaya | (‘Man-impelling’) is the name of a king, a Pāriksita, famous towards the end of the Brāhmana period. He is mentioned in the Satapatha Brāhmana as owning horses which when wearied were refreshed with sweet drinks, and as a performer of the Aśvamedha, or horse sacrifice. His capital, according to a Gāthā quoted in the śatapatha and the Aitareya Brāhmanas, was Asandīvant. His brothers Ugrasena, Bhīmasena, and Srutasena are mentioned as having by the horse sacrifice purified themselves from sin. The priest who performed the sacrifice for him was Indrota Daivāpi Saunaka. On the other hand the Aitareya Brāhmana, which also mentions his Aśvamedha, names Tura Kāvaseya as his priest. It also contains an obscure tale stating that at one sacrifice of his he did not employ the Kaśyapas, but the Bhūtavīras, being, however, induced by the Asitamygas to have recourse to the Kaśyapas again. He was a Kuru prince; see Pariksit. The Gopatha Brāhmana tells an absurd tale about him, evidently as of an ancient hero. | | | jāti | which in the Pāli texts is the word denoting ‘caste,’ does not occur at all in the early Vedic literature; when it is found, as in the Kātyāyana Srauta Sūtra, it has only the sense of ‘family’ (for which cf. Kula, Gotra, and Viś). For the influence of the family system on the growth of caste, see Varna. To assume that it was the basis of caste, as does Senart, is difficult in face of the late appearance of words for family and of stress on family. | | | taponitya | (‘Constant in penance’) Pauru-śisti (‘descendant of Puruśista’) is the name of a teacher in the Taittirīya Upanisad who believed in the value of penance (tapas). | | | tarakṣu | The ‘ hyaena,’ is mentioned in the list of victims at the Aśvamedha, or horse sacrifice, in the Yajurveda. | | | taskara | Occurs in the Rigveda and frequently later, denoting ‘thief’ or ‘robber.’ It appears to be practically synonymous with Stena, in connexion with which it is often mentioned. The Stena and the Taskara are contrasted in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā with the Malimlu, who is a burglar or house-breaker, while they are highwaymen, or, as the Rigveda puts it, ‘men who haunt the woods and risk their lives’ (taηū-tyajā vaηar-gū). In another passage of the Rigveda, however, the dog is told to bark at the Taskara or the Stena, which clearly points to an attempt at house-breaking. The thief goes about at night, and knows the paths on which he attacks his victim. In one passage of the Rigveda the use of cords is mentioned, but whether to bind the thieves when captured, or to bind the victim, is not clear. The Atharvaveda refers to the Stena and the Taskara as cattle and horse thieves. | | | tāyu | Was another name for thief, perhaps of a less distinguished and more domestic character than the highwayman, for though he is referred to as a cattle-thief, he is also alluded to as a stealer of clothes (vastra-mathi)u and as a debtor. In one passage the Tāyus are said to disappear at the coming of dawn (which is elsewhere called yāvayad-dvesas driving away hostile beings,’ and rta-pā, ‘ guardian of order ’), like the stars of heaven (naksatra). In the Satarudriya litany of the Vājasaneyi Samhitā Rudra is called lord of assailers (ā-vyādhin), thieves (stena), robbers (taskara), pickpockets (stāyu), stealers (musnant), and cutters (1vi-krnta); and designations of sharpers (grtsa) and bands (gana, vrāta), apparently of robbers, are mentioned. It is therefore not surprising that the Rigveda should contain many prayers for safety at home or on the way, or that the Atharvaveda should devote several hymns to night chiefly for protection against the evil doings of thieves and robbers. Pischel suggests that in one passage of the Rigveda Vasistha is represented as a burglar, but he admits that, since Vasistha was attacking the house of his father Varuna, he was only seeking to obtain what he may have regarded as his own. But the interpretation of the hymn is not certain. Sayana’s explanation of one passage of the Rigveda, as referring to professional cattle-trackers, like the Khojis of the Panjab, seems quite probable.The punishment of thieves appears primarily to have been left to the action of the robbed. The practice of binding them in stocks seems clearly referred to. But later, at any rate— and in all probability earlier also, as in other countries—a more severe penalty could be exacted, and death inflicted by the king. There is no hint in Vedic literature of the mode of conviction; a fire ordeal is not known to the Atharvaveda, and the ordeal known to the Chāndogya Upanisad is not said to be used in the case of theft. No doubt the stolen property was recovered by the person robbed if he could obtain it. Nothing is known as to what happened if the property had passed from the actual thief into the possession of another person. | | | dakṣiṇā | Appears repeatedly in the Rigveda and later as the designation of the gift presented to priests at the sacrifice, apparently because a cow—a prolific (daksinā) one—was the usual ‘fee’ on such an occasion. The later Dāna-stutis, or ‘ Praises of Gifts,’ in the Rigveda immensely exaggerate these donations, and the exaggeration grows in the Brāhmanas. It is important to notice that these enumerations of gifts in the main include nothing but articles of personal property, such as kine, horses, buffaloes, or camels (ustra), ornaments, and so forth, but not land. Reference is, however, made in the Satapatha Brāhmana to land as a Daksinā, but with disapproval, probably because the land came to be regarded as inalienable without the consent of the clansmen. | | | divodāsa bhaimaseni | (‘Descendant of Bhīmasena ’) is mentioned in the Kāthaka Samhitā as a contemporary of Aruni. | | | devāpi arṣṭiṣeṇa | (‘Descendant of Rstisena ’) is mentioned in a hymn of the Rigveda and in the Nirukta. According to the latter source there were two brothers, Devāpi and Santanu, princes of the Kurus. The elder was Devāpi, but śantanu got himself anointed king, whereupon no rain fell for twelve years. The drought being attributed by the Brahmins to his having superseded his elder brother, Santanu offered the kingdom to Devāpi. The latter, however, refused, but acting as Purohita, or domestic priest, for his brother, obtained rain. The Brhaddevatā tells much the same tale, but adds that the reason for Devapi’s exclusion from the throne was the fact that he suffered from a skin disease. The Epic and later legends further develop the story, presenting two somewhat discrepant accounts. According to the one version, the ground of Devāpi's being passed over was leprosy, while in the other his devoting himself to asceticism in his youth was the cause of his brother’s taking his place. The Epic, moreover, treats him as a son of Pratīpa, and names as his brothers Bāhlīka6 and Arstisena, who is a new figure developed from the patronymic of Devāpi. Possibly Sieg is right in holding that two stories, those of Devāpi, Pratlpa’s son, and of Devāpi, Estisena’s son, have been confused; but in any case it is impossible to extract history from them. The Rigvedic hymn certainly appears to represent Devāpi as sacrificing for Santanu, who seems to be called Aulāna. But there is no trace in it of the brotherhood of the two men, nor is there anything to show that Devāpi was not a Brahmin, but a Ksatriya. Sieg, who interprets the hymn by the Nirukta, thinks that he was a Ksatriya, but on this occasion was enabled by the favour of Brhaspati to officiate as priest, and that the hymn shows clear recognition of the unusual character of his action ; but this view seems very improbable. | | | drupada | A ‘wooden pillar’ or ‘ post,’ is several times referred to in the Rigveda and later. śunahsepa was bound to three posts for sacrifice. Thieves, there is some evidence to show, were tied to posts as a penalty for stealing. | | | dharma | Are the regular words, the latter in the Rigveda, and both later, for ‘ law ’ or ‘ custom.’ But there is very little evidence in the early literature as to the administration of justice or the code of law followed. On the other hand, the Dharma Sūtras contain full particulars.Criminal Law.—The crimes recognized in Vedic literature vary greatly in importance, while there is no distinction adopted in principle between real crimes and what now are regarded as fanciful bodily defects or infringements of merely conventional practices. The crimes enumerated include the slaying of an embryo ( | | | nakṣatra | Is a word of obscure origin and derivation. The Indian interpreters already show a great divergence of opinion as to its primary meaning. The śatapatha Brāhmana resolves it into na-ksatra (‘ no power ’), explaining it by a legend. The Nirukta refers it to the root naks, ‘obtain/ following the Taittirīya Brāhmana. Aufrecht and Weber derived it from nakta-tra, ‘ guardian of night/ and more recently the derivation from nak-ksatra, ‘ having rule over night/ seems to be gaining acceptance. The generic meaning of the word therefore seems to be ‘star/ The Naksatras as Stars in the Rigveda and Later.—The sense of star ’ appears to be adequate for all or nearly all the passages in which Naksatra occurs in the Rigveda. The same sense occurs in the later Samhitās also : the sun and the Naksatras are mentioned together, or the sun, the moon, and the Naksatras, or the moon and the Naksatras, or the Naksatras alone; but there is no necessity to attribute to the word the sense of lunar mansion ’ in these passages. On the other hand, the names of at least three of the Naksatras in the later sense occur in the Rigveda. Tisya, however, does not seem to be mentioned as a lunar mansion. With Aghās (plur.) and Arjunī (dual) the case is different: it seems probable that they are the later lunar mansions called Maghās (plur.) and Phālgunī (dual). The names appear to have been deliberately changed in the Rigveda, and it must be remembered that the hymn in which they occur, the wedding hymn of Sūryā, has no claim to great age. Ludwig and Zimmer have seen other references to the Naksatras as 27 in the Rigveda, but these seem most improbable. Nor do the adjectives revatī (£ rich ’) and punarvasīi (‘ bringing wealth again’) in another hymn appear to refer to the Naksatras. The Naksatras as Lunar Mansions.—In several passages of the later Samhitās the connexion of the moon and the Naksatras is conceived of as a marriage union. Thus in the Kāthaka and Taittirīya Samhitās it is expressly stated that Soma was wedded to the mansions, but dwelt only with Rohinī; the others being angry, he had ultimately to undertake to live with them all equally. Weber hence deduced that the Naksatras were regarded as of equal extent, but this is to press the texts unduly, except in the sense of approximate equality. The number of the mansions is not stated as 27 in the story told in the two Samhitās: the Taittīriya has, and the Kāthaka no number; but 27 appears as their number in the list which is found in the Taittirīya Samhitā and elsewhere. The number 28 is much less well attested: in one passage of the Taittirīya Brāhmana Abhijit is practically marked as a new comer, though in a later book, in the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, and in the Atharvaveda list,27 it has found acceptance. It is perfectly possible that 28 is the earlier number, and that Abhijit dropped out because it was faint, or too far north, or because 27 was a more mystic (3x3x3) number: it is significant that the Chinese Sieou and the Arabic Manāzil are 28 in number.28 Weber, however, believes that 27 is the older number in India. The meaning of the number is easily explained when it is remembered that a periodic month occupies something between 27 and 28 days, more nearly the former number. Such a month is in fact recognized in the Lātyāyana and Nidāna Sūtras as consisting of 27 days, 12 months making a year of 324 days, a Naksatra year, or with an intercalary month, a year of 351 days. The Nidāna Sūtra makes an attempt to introduce the Naksatra reckoning into the civil or solar (sāvana) year of 360 days, for it holds that the sun spends 13J• days in each Naksatra (13^x27 = 360). But the month of 27 or 28 days plays no part in the chronological calculations of the Veda. The Names of the Naksatras.—In addition to the two mentioned in the Rigveda, the earlier Atharvaveda gives the names of Jyesthaghnī (the later Jyesthā) and Vicrtau, which are mentioned as in close connexion, and of Revatīs (plural) and Kyttikās. With reference to possible times for the ceremony of the Agnyādhāna, or Maying of the sacred fires/ the Kāthaka Samhitā, the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, and the Taittirīya Brāhmana mention the Naksatras called Krttikās, Rohinī, Phalgunyas, Hasta; the latter Brāhmana adds Punar- vasū, and in an additional remark excludes Pūrve Phālgunī in favour of Uttare Phālgunī. The śatapatha Brāhmana adds Mrgaśīrsa and Citrā as possibilities. On the other hand, Punarvasū is recommended by all authorities as suitable for the Punarādheya, 'relaying of the sacred fires,’ which takes place if the first fire has failed to effect the aim of its existence, the prosperity of the sacrificer. The Kāthaka Samhitā, however, allows Anurādhās also. In the ceremony of the Agnicayana, or 'piling of the fire- altar,’ the bricks are assumed to be equal in number to the Naksatras. The bricks number 756, and they are equated to 27 Naksatras multiplied by 27 secondary Naksatras, reckoned as 720 (instead of 729), with the addition of 36 days, the length of an intercalary month. Nothing can be usefully derived from this piece of priestly nonsense. But in connexion with this ceremony the Yajurveda Samhitās enumerate the 27, The Taittirīya Brāhmana has a list of the Naksatras which agrees generally with the list of the Samhitās. It runs as follows: Kyttikās, Rohinī, Invakās, Bāhū (dual), Tisya, Aśleṣās, Maghās, Pūrve Phālgunī, Uttare Phālgunī, Hasta, Citrā, Nistyā, Viśākhe, Anūrādhās, Rohinī, Mūlabarhanī, Pūrvā Asādhās', Uttarā Asādhās, Sronā, Sravisthās, Satabhisaj, Pūrve Prosthapadās, Uttare Prosthapadās, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Apabharanīs. In a later book, however, the list grows to 28, and the full moon is inserted after number 14, and the new moon after number, as an attempt to bring the Naksatra (lunar) month into accordance with the Sāvana (solar) month of 30 days. The names in this second list are as in the Samhitās with the following exceptions. The seven stars of the Krttikās are named as Ambā, Dulā, Nitatnī, Abhrayantī, Meghayantī, Varsayantī, Cupunīkā, names found also in the Taittirīya and Kāthaka Samhitās. Beside Mrgaśīrsa, Invakās are also mentioned. Then come Ardrā, Punarvasū, Tisya, Aśresās, Maghās (beside which Anaghās, Agadās, and Arun- dhatīs are also mentioned), Phalgunyas (but elsewhere in the dual, Phalgunyau), Phalgunyas, Hasta, Citrā, Nistyā, Viśākhe, Anūrādhās, Jyesthā, Mūla, Asādhās, Asā(jhās, Abhijit, śronā, Sravisthās, Satabhisaj, Prosthapadās, Prosthapadās, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Bharanyas, but also Apabharanīs. Abhijit, which occurs also in an earlier part of the Brāhmana, is perhaps interpolated. But Weber’s argument that Abhijit is out of place in this list because Brāhmana is here mentioned as the 28th Naksatra, loses some force from the fact (of course unknown to him) that the list in the Maitrāyanī Samhitā contains 28 Naksatras, including Abhijit, and adds Brāhmana at the end as another. In another passage the Taittirīya Brāhmana divides the Naksatras into two sets, the Deva Naksatras and the Yama Naksatras, being 1-14 and 15-27 (with the omission of Abhijit) respectively. This division corresponds with one in the third book of the Brāhmana60 where the days of the light half of the month and those of the dark half are equated with the Naksatras. The Brāhmana treats the former series as south, the latter as north; but this has no relation to facts, and can only be regarded as a ritual absurdity. The late nineteenth book of the Atharvaveda contains a list of the Naksatras, including Abhijit. The names here (masc.), Viśākhe, Anurādhā, Jyesthā, Mūla, Pūrvā Asādhās, Uttarā Asādhās, Abhijit, śravana, śravisthās, śatabhisaj, Dvayā Prosthapadā, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Bharanyas. The Position of the Naksatras.—There is nothing definite in Vedic literature regarding the position of most of the Naksatras, but the later astronomy precisely locates all of them, and its statements agree on the whole satisfactorily with what is said in the earlier texts, though Weber was inclined to doubt this. The determinations adopted below are due to Whitney in his notes on the Sūrya Siddhānta. 1.Krttikās are unquestionably η Tauri, etc., the Pleiades. The names of the seven stars forming this constellation, and given above from Yajurveda texts, include three --------abhrayantī, forming clouds meghayantī, ‘making cloudy’; varsayantī, ‘causing rain’—which clearly refer to the rainy Pleiades. The word krttikā possibly means ‘web/ from the root krt, spin.’ 2. Rohinī, ‘ ruddy,’ is the name of the conspicuously reddish star, a Tauri or Aldebaran, and denotes the group of the Hyades, <* θ y 8 e Tauri. Its identification seems absolutely assured by the legend of Prajāpati in the Aitareya Brāhmana. He is there represented as pursuing his daughter with incestuous intention, and as having been shot with an arrow (Isu Trikāndā, ‘ the belt of Orion ’) by the huntsman ’ (Mrgavyādha, Sirius ’). Prajāpati is clearly Orion (Mrgaśiras being the name of the little group of stars in Orion’s head). 3.Mrgaśīrsa or Mrgaśiras, also called Invakā or Invagā, seems to be the faint stars λ, φ,1 φ2 Orionis. They are called Andhakā, * blind,’ in the śāntikalpa of the Atharvaveda, probably because of their dimness. 4.Ardrā, ‘ moist,’ is the name of the brilliant star, α Orionis. But the names by which it is styled, in the plural as Árdrās in the śāñkhāyana Grhya Sūtra and the Naksatrakalpa, and in the dual as Bāhú, in the Taittirīya Brāhmana, point to a constellation of two or more stars, and it may be noted that the corresponding Chinese Sieou includes the seven brilliant stars composing the shoulders, the belt, and the knees of Orion. 5. Punarvasu, the two that give wealth again,’ denotes the two stars, a and β Geminorum, on the heads of Castor and Pollux. The name is no doubt connected with the beneficent character of the Aśvins, who correspond to the Dioscuri. 6.Tisya or Pusya includes the somewhat faint group in the body of the Crab, 7, δ, and θ Cancri. The singular is rather curious, as primarily one star would seem to have been meant, and none of the group is at all prominent. 7. Aśresās or Aślesās, which in some texts is certainly to be read Aśresās or Aślesas, denotes δ, e, η, p, σ, and perhaps also ζ, Hydrse. The word means ‘embracer,’ a name which admirably fits the constellation. 8. Maghās, the ‘bounties,’ are the Sickle, or α, γ, ζ, μ, e Leonis. The variants Anaghā, the ‘ sinless one,’ etc.,clearly refer to the auspicious influence of the constellation. 9. 10. Phālgunī, Phalgunyau, Phalgū, Phalg-unīs, Phal- gunyas, is really a double constellation, divided into Pūrve, ‘ former,’ and Uttare, ‘latter.’ The former is δ and θ Leonis, the latter β and Leonis. According to Weber, the word denotes, like Arjunī, the variant of the Rigveda, a ‘ bright- coloured ’ constellation. 11. Hasta, ‘hand,’ is made up of the five conspicuous stars (δ> Ί, e, a, β) in Corvus, a number which the word itself suggests. According to Geldner, the ‘ five bulls ’ of the Rigveda are this constellation. 12. Citrā, ‘bright,’ is the beautiful star, a Virginis. It is mentioned in a legend of Indra in the Taittirīya Brāhmana, and in that of the ‘ two divine dogs ’ (divyau śvānau) in the śatapatha Brāhmana. 13. Svāti or Nistyā is later clearly the brilliant star Arcturus or a Bootis, its place in the north being assured by the notice in the śāntikalpa, where it is said to be ‘ ever traversing the northern way ’ (nityam uttara-mārgagam). The Taittirīya Brāhmana, however, constructs an asterismal Prajāpati, giving him Citrā (α Virginis) for head, Hasta (Corvus) for hand, the Viśākhe (α and β Librae) for thighs, and the Anurādhās (β, δ, and 7r Scorpionis) for standing place, with Nistyā for heart. But Arcturus, being 30° out, spoils this figure, while, on the other hand, the Arabic and Chinese systems have respectively, instead of Arcturus, Virginis and κ Virginis, which would well fit into the Prajāpati figure. But in spite of the force of this argument of Weber’s, Whitney is not certain that Nistyā here must mean a star in Virgo, pointing out that the name Nistyā, ‘outcast,’ suggests the separation of this Naksatra from the others in question. 14.Viśākhe is the couple of stars a and β Librae. This mansion is later called Rādhā according to the Amarakośa, and it is curious that in the Atharvaveda the expression rādho Viśākhe, the Viśākhe are prosperity,’ should occur. But probably Rādhā is merely an invention due to the name of the next Naksatra, Anurādhā, wrongly conceived as meaning that which is after or follows Rādhā.’ 15. Anūrādhās or Anurādhā, propitious,’ is β, δ, and tγ (perhaps also p) Scorpionis. 16. Rohinī, ‘ ruddy ’; Jyesthaghnī, * slaying the eldest ’; or Jyesthā, ‘eldest,’ is the name of the constellation σ, α, and τ Scorpionis, of which the central star, a, is the brilliant reddish Antares (or Cor Scorpionis).
17.Vicrtau, ‘ the two releasers ’; Mūla, ‘ root or Mūla- barhanī, ‘ uprooting,’ denote primarily λ and v at the extremity of the tail of the Scorpion, but including also the nine or eleven stars from e to v.
18.19. Asādhās (‘ unconquered ’), distinguished as Pūrvās, ‘ former,’ and Uttarās, ‘ latter,’ are really two constellations, of which the former is composed of γ, δ, e, and η Sagittarii, or of 8 and e only, and the latter of θ, σ, t, and ξ Sagittarii, or of two, σ and ζ, only. It is probable that originally only four stars forming a square were meant as included in the whole constellation —viz., σ and f, with 8 and e.
20. Abhijit is the brilliant star a Lyrse with its two companions e and ζ. Its location in 6o° north latitude is completely discordant with the position of the corresponding Arabian and Chinese asterisms. This fact is considered by Oldenberg to support the view that it was a later addition to the system; its occurrence, however, as early as the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, which he does not note, somewhat invalidates that view. In the Taittirīya Brāhmana Abhijit is said to be ‘over Asādhās, under śronā,’ which Weber held to refer to its position in space, inferring thence that its Vedic position corresponded to that of the Arab Manāzil and the Chinese Sieou—viz., a, β Capricorni. But Whitney argues effectively that the words ‘ over ’ and ‘ under ’ really refer to the place of Abhijit in the list, ‘ after ’ Asādhās and ‘ before ’ Sronā.
21. Sronā, ‘lame,’ or Sravana, ‘ ear,’ denotes the bright star a Aquilai with β below and 7 above it. Weber very need- lessly thinks that the name Sravana suggested two ears and the head between. It is quite out of correspondence with the Manāzil and the Sieou, and is clearly an Indian invention.
22. śravisthās, ‘ most famous,’ or later Dhanisthās, ‘most wealthy,’ is the diamond-shaped group, α, β, δ, and 7, in the Dolphin, perhaps also ζ in the same constellation. Like the preceding Naksatra, it is out of harmony with the Manāzil and Sieou. 23. Satabhisaj or śatabhisa, ‘having a hundred physicians,’ seems to be λ Aquarii with the others around it vaguely conceived as numbering a hundred.
24. 25. Prostha-padās (fem. plur.), ‘ feet of a stool,’ or later Bhadra-padās,100 ‘auspicious feet,’ a double asterism forming a square, the former (pūrva) consisting of a and β Pegasi, the latter (uttara) of γ Pegasi and a Andromedse.
26. Revatī, ‘ wealthy,’ denotes a large number of stars (later 32), of which ζ Piscium, close upon the ecliptic where it was crossed by the equator of about 570 a.d., is given as the southernmost. 27. Aśva-yujau, ‘the two horse-harnessers,’ denotes the stars β and ζ Arietis. Aśvinyau101 and Aśvinī102 are later names. 28. Apabharanīs, Bharanīs, or Bharanyas, ‘ the bearers,’ is the name of the small triangle in the northern part of the Ram known as Musca or 35, 39, and 41 Arietis. The Naksatras and the Months.—In the Brāhmanas the Naksatra names are regularly used to denote dates. This is done in two ways. The name, if not already a feminine, may be turned into a feminine and compounded with pūrna-māsa, ‘the full moon,’ as in Tisyā-pūrnamāsa, ‘the full moon in the Naksatra Tisya.’103 Much more often, however, it is turned into a derivative adjective, used with paurnamāsī, ‘the full moon (night)/ or with amāvāsyā, ‘the new moon (night)/ as in Phālgunī paurnamāsl, ‘the full-moon night in the Naksatra Phālgunī’;104 or, as is usual in the Sūtras, the Naksatra adjective alone is used to denote the full-moon night. The month itself is called by a name derived105 from that of a Naksatra, but only Phālguna,106 Caitra,107 Vaiśākha,108 Taisya,109 Māgha110 occur in the Brāhmanas, the complete list later being Phālguna, Caitra, Vaiśākha, Jyaistha, Asādha, Srāvana, Prausthapada, Aśvayuja, Kārttika, Mārgaśīrsa, Taisya, Māgha. Strictly speaking, these should be lunar months, but the use of a lunar year was clearly very restricted: we have seen that as early as the Taittirīya Brāhmana there was a tendency to equate lunar months with the twelve months of thirty days which made up the solar year (see Māsa). The Naksatras and Chronology.—(i) An endeavour has been made to ascertain from the names of the months the period at which the systematic employment of those names was intro¬duced. Sir William Jones111 refers to this possibility, and Bentley, by the gratuitous assumption that śrāvana always marked the summer solstice, concluded that the names of the months did not date before b.c. Ii8I. Weber112 considered that there was a possibility of fixing a date by this means, but Whitney113 has convincingly shown that it is an impossible feat, and Thibaut114 concurs in this view. Twelve became fixed as the number of the months because of the desire, evident in the Brāhmanas, somehow or other to harmonize lunar with solar time; but the selection of twelve Naksatras out of twenty-seven as connected with the night of full moon can have no chronological significance, because full moon at no period occurred in those twelve only, but has at all periods occurred in every one of the twenty-seven at regularly recurrent intervals. (2) All the lists of the Naksatras begin with Krttikās. It is only fair to suppose that there was some special reason for this fact. Now the later list of the Naksatras begins with Aśvinī, and it was unquestionably rearranged because at the time of its adoption the vernal equinox coincided with the star ζ Piscium on the border of Revatī and Aśvinī, say in the course of the sixth century A.D. Weber has therefore accepted the view that the Krttikās were chosen for a similar reason, and the date at which that Naksatra coincided with the vernal equinox has been estimated at some period in the third millennium B.C. A very grave objection to this view is its assumption that the sun, and not the moon, was then regarded as connected with the Naksatras; and both Thibaut and Oldenberg have pronounced decidedly against the idea of connecting the equinox with the Krttikās. Jacobi has contended that in the Rigveda the commencement of the rains and the summer solstice mark the beginning of the new year and the end of the old, and that further the new year began with the summer solstice in Phālgunī.121 He has also referred to the distinction of the two sets of Deva and Yama Naksatras in the Taittirīya Brāhmana as supporting his view of the connexion of the sun and the Naksatras. But this view is far from satisfactory: the Rigveda passages cannot yield the sense required except by translating the word dvādaśa123 as 4 the twelfth (month) * instead of consisting of twelve parts,’ that is, ‘year/ the accepted interpretation; and the division of the Naksatras is not at all satisfactorily explained by a supposed connexion with the sun. It may further be mentioned that even if the Naksatra of Krttikās be deemed to have been chosen because of its coincidence with the vernal equinox, both Whitney and Thibaut are pre¬pared to regard it as no more than a careless variant of the date given by the Jyotisa, which puts the winter solstice in Māgha. (3) The winter solstice in Māgha is assured by a Brāhmana text, for the Kausītaki Brāhmana12® expressly places it in the new moon of Māgha (māghasyāmāυāsyāyām). It is not very important whether we take this with the commentators as the new moon in the middle of a month commencing with the day after full moon in Taisa, or, which is much more likely, as the new moon beginning the month and preceding full moon in Māgha. The datum gives a certain possibility of fixing an epoch in the following way. If the end of Revatī marked the vernal equinox at one period, then the precession of the equinoxes would enable us to calculate at what point of time the vernal equinox was in a position corresponding to the winter solstice in Māgha, when the solstitial colure cut the ecliptic at the beginning of Sravisthās. This would be, on the strict theory, in the third quarter of Bharanī, 6f asterisms removed from Sravisthās, and the difference between that and the beginning of Aśvinī = if asterisms = 23 (27 asterisms being = 360°). Taking, the starting-point at 499 a.d., the assured period of Varāha Mihira, Jones arrived at the date B.C. 1181 for the vernal equinox corresponding to the winter solstice in Māgha—that is, on the basis of ι° = 72 years as the precession. Pratt arrived at precisely the same date, taking the same rate of precession and adopting as his basis the ascertained position in the Siddhantas of the junction star of Maghā, a Leonis or Regulus. Davis and Colebrooke arrived at a different date, B.C. 1391, by taking as the basis of their calculation the junction star of Citrā, which happens to be of uncertain position, varying as much as 30 in the different textbooks. But though the twelfth century has received a certain currency as the epoch of the observation in the Jyotisa, it is of very doubtful value. As Whitney points out, it is impossible to say that the earlier asterisms coincided in position with the later asterisms of 13J0 extent each. They were not chosen as equal divisions, but as groups of stars which stood in conjunction with the moon; and the result of subsequently making them strictly equal divisions was to throw the principal stars of the later groups altogether out of their asterisms. Nor can we say that the star ζ Piscium early formed the eastern boundary of Revatī; it may possibly not even have been in that asterism at all, for it is far remote from the Chinese and Arabic asterisms corresponding to Revatī. Added to all this, and to the uncertainty of the starting-point— 582 a.d., 560 a.d., or 491 a.d. being variants —is the fact that the place of the equinox is not a matter accurately determin¬able by mere observation, and that the Hindu astronomers of the Vedic period cannot be deemed to have been very accurate observers, since they made no precise determination of the number of days of the year, which even in the Jyotisa they do not determine more precisely than as 366 days, and even the Sūrya Siddhānta136 does not know the precession of the equinoxes. It is therefore only fair to allow a thousand years for possible errors,137 and the only probable conclusion to be drawn from the datum of the Kausītaki Brāhmana is that it was recording an observation which must have been made some centuries B.C., in itself a result quite in harmony with the probable date of the Brāhmana literature,138 say B.C. 800-600. (4) Another chronological argument has been derived from the fact that there is a considerable amount of evidence for Phālguna having been regarded as the beginning of the year, since the full moon in Phālgunī is often described as the ‘ mouth (mukham) of the year.’139 Jacobi140 considers that this was due to the fact that the year was reckoned from the winter solstice, which would coincide with the month of Phālguna about B.C. 4000. Oldenberg and Thibaut, on the other hand, maintain that the choice of Phālguna as the ‘ mouth ’ of the year was due to its being the first month of spring. This view is favoured by the fact that there is distinct evidence of the correspondence of Phālguna and the beginning of spring : as we have seen above in the Kausītaki Brāhmana, the new moon in Māgha is placed at the winter solstice, which puts the full moon of Phālgunī at a month and a half after the winter solstice, or in the first week of February, a date not in itself improbable for about B.C. 800, and corresponding with the February 7 of the veris initium in the Roman Calendar. This fact accords with the only natural division of the year into three periods of four months, as the rainy season lasts from June 7-10 to October 7-10, and it is certain that the second set of four months dates from the beginning of the rains (see Cāturmāsya). Tilak, on the other hand, holds that the winter solstice coincided with Māghī full moon at the time of the Taittirīya Samhitā (b.c. 2350), and had coincided with Phālgunī and Caitrī in early periods—viz., B.C. 4000-2500, and B.C. 6000¬4000. (5) The passages of the Taittirīya Samhitā and the Pañca¬vimśa Brāhmana, which treat the full moon in Phālguna as the beginning of the year, give as an alternative the full moon in Caitra. Probably the latter month was chosen so as to secure that the initial day should fall well within the season of spring, and was not, as Jacobi believes, a relic of a period when the winter solstice corresponded with Caitra. Another alternative is the Ekāstakā, interpreted by the commentators as the eighth day after the full moon in Maghās, a time which might, as being the last quarter of the waning half of the old year, well be considered as representing the end of the year. A fourth alternative is the fourth day before full moon; the full moon meant must be that of Caitra, as Álekhana quoted by Ápastamba held, not of Māgha, as Asmarathya, Laugāksi and the Mīmāmsists believed, and as Tilak believes. (6) Others, again, according to the Grhya ritual, began the year with the month Mārgaśīrsa, as is shown by its other name Agrahāyana (‘ belonging to the commencement of the year ’). Jacobi and Tilak think that this one denoted the autumn equinox in Mrgaśiras, corresponding to the winter solstice in Phālgunī. But, as Thibaut shows clearly, it was selected as the beginning of a year that was taken to commence with autumn, just as some took the spring to commence with Caitra instead of Phālguna. (7) Jacobi has also argued, with the support of Buhler, from the terms given for the beginning of Vedic study in the Grhya Sūtras, on the principle that study commenced with the rains (as in the Buddhist vassā) which mark the summer solstice. He concludes that if Bhādrapada appears as the date of commencing study in some texts, it was fixed thus because at one time Prosthapadās (the early name of Bhadra- padās) coincided with the summer solstice, this having been the case when the winter solstice was in Phālguna. But Whitney155 has pointed out that this argument is utterly illegitimate; we cannot say that there was any necessary connexion between the rains and learning—a month like Srāvana might be preferred because of its connexion with the word Sravana, 4 ear ’—and in view of the precession of the equinoxes, we must assume that Bhādrapada was kept because of its traditional coincidence with the beginning of the rains after it had ceased actually so to coincide. the other astronomical phenomena; the discovery of a series of 27 lunar mansions by them would therefore be rather surprising. On the other hand, the nature of such an operation is not very complicated ; it consists merely in selecting a star or a star group with which the moon is in conjunction. It is thus impossible a priori to deny that the Vedic Indians could have invented for themselves a lunar Zodiac. But the question is complicated by the fact that there exist two similar sets of 28 stars or star groups in Arabia and in China, the Manāzil and the Sieou. The use of the Manāzil in Arabia is consistent and effective ; the calendar is regulated by them, and the position of the asterisms corresponds best with the positions required for a lunar Zodiac. The Indians might therefore have borrowed the system from Arabia, but that is a mere possibility, because the evidence for the existence of the Manāzil is long posterior to that for the existence of the Naksatras, while again the Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth of the Old Testament may really be the lunar mansions. That the Arabian system is borrowed from India, as Burgess held, is, on the other hand, not at all probable. Biot, the eminent Chinese scholar, in a series of papers published by him between. 1839 and 1861, attempted to prove the derivation of the Naksatra from the Chinese Sieou. The latter he did not regard as being in origin lunar mansions at all. He thought that they were equatorial stars used, as in modern astronomy, as a standard to which planets or other stars observed in the neighbourhood can be referred; they were, as regards twenty-four of them, selected about B.C. 2357 on account of their proximity to the equator, and of their having the same right ascension as certain circumpolar stars which had attracted the attention of Chinese observers. Four more were added in B.C. IIOO in order to mark the equinoxes and solstices of the period. He held that the list of stars commenced with Mao (= Krttikās), which was at the vernal equinox in B.C. 2357. Weber, in an elaborate essay of i860, disputed this theory, and endeavoured to show that the Chinese literary evidence for the Sieou was late, dating not even from before the third century B.C. The last point does not appear to be correct, but his objections against the basis of Biot’s theory were rein¬forced by Whitney, who insisted that Biot’s supposition of the Sieou’s not having been ultimately derived from a system of lunar mansions, was untenable. This is admitted by the latest defender of the hypothesis of borrowing from China, Lśopold de Saussure, , but his arguments in favour of a Chinese origin for the Indian lunar mansions have been refuted by Oldenberg, who has also pointed out that the series does not begin with Mao ( = Krttikās). There remains only the possibility that a common source for all the three sets—Naksatra, Manāzil, and Sieou—may be found in Babylonia. Hommel has endeavoured to show that recent research has established in Babylonia the existence of a lunar zodiac of twenty-four members headed by the Pleiades ( = Krttikās); but Thibaut’s researches are not favourable to this claim. On the other hand, Weber, Whitney, Zimmer, and Oldenberg all incline to the view that in Babylonia is to be found the origin of the system, and this must for the present be regarded as the most probable view, for there are other traces of Babylonian influence in Vedic literature, such as the legend of the flood, perhaps the Adityas, and possibly the word Manā.
| | | niṣāda | Is found in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmanas. The word seems to denote not so much a particular tribe, but to be the general term for the non-Aryan tribes who were not under Aryan control, as the Sūdras were, for Aupamanyava took the five peoples (pañca jaηāh) to be the four castes (catvāro varnāh) and the Nisādas, and the commentator Mahīdhara explains the word where it occurs in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā as meaning a Bhilla, or Bhīl. A village of Nisādas is men¬tioned in the Lātyāyana Srauta Sūtra, and a Nisāda Sthapati, a leader of some kind, is referred to in the Kātyāyana Srauta Sūtra and in a Brāhmana cited by the scholiast on that passage. Weber thinks that the Nisādas were the settled aborigines (from ni, ‘down,’ and sad, ‘settle’), a view sup-ported by the fact that the ritual of the Viśvajit sacrifice requires a temporary residence with Nisādas; for the Nisādas who would permit an Aryan to reside temporarily amongst them must have been partially amenable to Aryan influence. But the name might easily be applied to the whole body of aborigines outside the Aryan organization. Von Schroeder thinks that the Nisādas were most probably identical with the Nysseans, who, according to the Greek account, sent an embassy to Alexander when he was in the territory of the Aśvakas, but this identification is doubtful. | | | paripanthin | ‘Besetting the path,’ denotes ‘ robber ’ in the Rigveda and later. Cf Taskara, Tāyu, Stena. | | | paruṣṇī | Is the name of a river which is mentioned in the Nadī-stuti (‘Praise of Rivers’), and in the song of Sudās’ victory over the ten kings, which seems to have been made decisive by the rise of the river drowning the fugitives. In these passages and one of the eighth book of the Rigveda, where it is called a ‘ great stream ’ (mahenadi), the name is certainly that of the river later called Ravi (Irāvatī), as recognized by Yāska. Pischel sees a reference to it in two other passages of the Rigveda, where ‘ wool ’ (ūrnā) is connected with the word parusnī, and the allusion to the river is accepted by Max Muller and Oldenberg, though they are not fully agreed as to the exact sense of the passages in question. Pischel suggests that the name is derived from the ‘flocks’ (parus) of wool, not from the bends of the river, as understood by the Nirukta, or from its reeds, as Roth suggests. The mention of the Parusnī and the Yamunā in the hymn celebrating the victory of Sudās has given rise to the conjectures of Hopkins, that the Yamunā in that hymn is merely another name for the Parusnī, and of Geldner, that the Parusnī there is merely a tributary of the Yamunā (Jumna). But neither interpretation is either essential or even probable. The hymn is a condensed one, and may well be taken as celebrating two great victories of Sudās. There is a doubtful reference to the Parusnī in the Atharvaveda. | | | pārikṣita | ‘Descendant of Pariksit,’ is the patronymic of Janamejaya in the Aitareya Brāhmana and the śatapatha Brāhmana. The Pāriksitīyas appear in the śatapatha Brāhmana and the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra as performers of the horse sacrifice. In a Gāthā there cited they are called Pāri- ksitas. Apparently they were the brothers of Janamejaya, named Ugrasena, Bhīmasena, and Srutasena. In the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad the question whither they have gone is made the subject of a philosophical discussion. It is clear that the family had passed away before the time of the Upanisad, and it is also clear that there had been some serious scandal mingled with their greatness which they had, in the opinion of the Brahmins, atoned for by their horse sacrifice with its boundless gifts to the priests. Weber sees in this the germ of the Epic stories which are recorded in the Mahābhārata. The verses relating to Pariksit in the Atharvaveda are called Pāriksityah in the Brāhmanas. | | | pṛthi | Is the name of a semi-mythical personage who is mentioned in the Rigveda and later as a Rṣi, and more specially as the inventor of agriculture and the lord of both worlds, of men and of animals. He bears in several passages the epithet'Vainya, descendant of Vena,’ and must probably be regarded as a culture hero rather than as a real man. According to other accounts, he was the first of consecrated kings. Cf Pārthiva. | | | prāyaścitta | Denotes a ‘penance’ or ‘expiation,’ both words occurring frequently in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmaṇas. The penances are prescribed for every conceivable sort of ritual, social or moral; a complete list of them is included in the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmana.8 | | | balhika prātipīya | Is the name of a Kuru king in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, where he appears as having been opposed to the restoration of Duçtarītu Paumsāyana to his hereditary sovereignty over the Srñjayas, but as having failed to prevent the restoration being carried out by Revottaras Pā^ava Cākra Sthapati. The epithet Prātipīya is curious: if it connects him with Pratīpa (whose son he is in the Epic), the form is remarkable, Zimmer indeed tacitly altering it to Prātīpīya. In the Epic and the Purānas he is in the form of Vāhlīka made a brother of Devāpi and śantanu, and a son of Pratīpa. To base chronological conclusions on this would be utterly misleading, for the facts are that Devāpi was son of çṣ^iṣena and a priest, while śantanu was a Kura prince of unknown parentage, but not probably a son of Pratīpa, who seems to be a late figure in the Vedic age, later than Parikçit, being his great-grandson in the Epic. Very possibly Balhika was a descendant of Pratīpa. Why he bore the name Balhika must remain uncertain, for there is no evidence of any sort regarding it. | | | bekanāṭa | Occurs only once in the Rigveda, when Indra is said to overcome all the Bekanātas and the Paṇis. The natural sense, therefore, seems to be ‘ usurer,’ the explanation given by Yāska. The word has a foreign appearance, but its provenance can hardly be determined: it might just as well be aboriginal as Babylonian. Hillebrandt thinks Brunnhofer is right in identifying Bekanāta with Bikanir. | | | brahmacarya | Denotes the condition of life of the Brahma-cārin or religious student. The technical sense is first found in the last Maṇdala of the Rigveda. The practice of-studentship doubtless developed, and was more strictly regulated by custom as time went on, but it is regularly assumed and discussed in the later Vedic literature, being obviously a necessary part of Vedic society. The Atharvaveda has in honour of the Brahmacārin a hymn which already gives all the characteristic features of religious studentship. The youth is initiated (iipa-nī) by the teacher into a new life; he wears an antelope skin, and lets his hair grow long ;δ he collects fuel, and begs, learns, and practises penance. All these characteristics appear in the later literature. The student lives in the house of his teacher (ācārya-kala-vāsin ; ante-vāsin); he begs, looks after the sacrificial fires, and tends the house. His term of studentship might be long extended: it was normally fixed at twelve years, but much longer periods, such as thirty-two years, are mentioned. The age at which studentship began varied: śvetaketu commenced at twelve and studied for twelve years. It is assumed in the Grhya Sūtras that the three Aryan castes were all required to pass through a period of studentship. But that this is much more than priestly schematism is uncertain. No doubt individuals of the Kçatriya or Vaiśya caste might go through part of the period of studentship, just as Burmese boys of all classes now pass some time in a monastery as students. This is borne out by the reference in the Atharvaveda to the king guarding his country by Brahmacarya—though that is susceptible of a different interpretation—and more clearly by the reference in the Kāthaka Samhitā to a rite intended to benefit one who, although not a Brahmin, had studied (vidyūm anūcya), but had not gained renown, and by references in the Upaniṣads to kings who like Janaka studied the Vedas and the Upaniṣads. Normally, however, the Kṣatriya studied the art of war. One of the duties of the Brahmacārin was chastity. But reference is in several places made to the possibility of misconduct between a student and the wife of his preceptor, nor is any very severe penance imposed in early times later it is different for such a sin. In certain cases the ritual required a breach of chastity, no doubt as a magic spell to secure fertility. Even an old man might on occasion become a pupil, as the story of Árurii shows. | | | brāmaṇa | Descendant of a Brahman' (i.e., of a priest), is found only a few times in the Rigveda, and mostly in its latest parts. In the Atharvaveda and later it is a very common word denoting ‘priest,’ and it appears in the quadruple division of the castes in the Purusa-sūkta (‘hymn of man’) of the Rigveda. It seems certain that in the Rigveda this Brāhmaṇa, or Brahmin, is already a separate caste, differing from the warrior and agricultural castes. The texts regularly claim for them a superiority to the Kṣatriya caste, and the Brahmin is able by his spells or manipulation of the rite to embroil the people and the warriors or the different sections of the warriors. If it is necessary to. recognize, as is sometimes done, that the Brahmin does pay homage to the king at the Rājasūya, nevertheless the unusual fact is carefully explained away so as to leave the priority of the Brahmin unaffected. But it is expressly recognized that the union of the Ksatriya and the Brāhmaṇa is essential for complete prosperity. It is admitted that the king or the nobles might at times oppress the Brahmins, but it is indicated that ruin is then certain swiftly to follow. The Brahmins are gods on earth, like the gods in heaven, but this claim is hardly found in the Rigveda. In the Aitareya Brāhmana the Brahmin is said to be the ‘ recipient of gifts * (ādāyt) and the * drinker of the offering ’ (āpāyT). The other two epithets applied, āvasāyī and yathā- kāma-prayāpya, are more obscure; the former denotes either ‘ dwelling everywhere ’ or ‘ seeking food ’; the latter is usually taken as * moving at pleasure,’ but it must rather allude to the power of the king to assign a place of residence to the Brahmin. In the śatapatha Brāhmana the prerogatives of the Brah¬min are summed up as Arcā, ‘honour’; Dāna, ‘gifts’; Aj'yeyatā,‘ freedom from oppression ’; and Avadhyatā, ‘ freedom from being killed.’ On the other hand, his duties are summed up as Brāhmanya, ‘ purity of descent’; Pratirūpa-caryā, ‘devotion of the duties of his caste’; and Loka-pakti, ‘the perfecting of people ’ (by teaching). ī. Respect paid to Brahmins. The texts are full of references to the civilities to be paid to the Brahmin. He is styled bhagavant, and is provided with good food and entertain¬ment wherever he goes. Indeed, his sanctity exempts him from any close inquiry into his real claim to Brahminhood according to the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana. Gifts to Brahmins. The Dānastuti (‘Praise of gifts’) is a recognized feature of the Rigveda, and the greed of the poets for Dakṣiṇās, or sacrificial fees, is notorious. Vedic texts themselves recognize that the literature thence resulting (Nārā- śamsī) was often false to please the donors. It was, however, a rule that Brahmins should not accept what had been refused by others; this indicates a keen sense of the danger of cheapening their wares. So exclusively theirs was the right to receive gifts that the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa has to explain how Taranta and Purumīlha became able to accept gifts by composing a Rigvedic hymn. The exaggerations in the celebration of the gifts bestowed on the priests has the curious result of giving us a series of numerals of some interest (Daśan). In some passages certain gifts those of a horse or sheep are forbidden, but this rule was not, it is clear, generally observed. Immunities of Brahmins. The Brahmin claimed to be exempt from the ordinary exercise of the royal power. When a king gives all his land and what is on it to the priests, the gift does not cover the property of the Brahmin according to the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. The king censures all, but not the Brahmin, nor can he safely oppress any Brahmin other than an ignorant priest. An arbitrator (or a witness) must decide (or speak) for a Brahmin against a non-Brahmin in a legal dispute. The Brahmin’s proper food is the Soma, not Surā or Parisrut, and he is forbidden to eat certain forms of flesh. On the other hand, he alone is allowed to eat the remains of the sacrifice, for no one else is sufficiently holy to consume food which the gods have eaten. Moreover, though he cannot be a physician, he helps the physician by being beside him while he exercises his art. His wife and his cow are both sacred. 4.Legal Position of. Brahmins.—The Taittirīya Samhitā lays down a penalty of a hundred (the unit meant is unknown) for an insult to a Brahmin, and of a thousand for a blow ; but if his blood is drawn, the penalty is a spiritual one. The only real murder is the slaying of a Brahmin according to the śatapatha Brāhmana. The crime of slaying a Brahmin ranks above the sin of killing any other man, but below that of killing an embryo (bhrūna) in the Yajurveda ; the crime of slaying an embryo whose sex is uncertain is on a level with that of slaying a Brahmin. The murder of a Brahmin can be expiated only by the horse sacrifice, or by a lesser rite in the late Taittirīya Araṇyaka.The ritual slaying of a Brahmin is allowed in the later ceremonial, and hinted at in the curious legend of śunahśepa ; and a Purohita might be punished with death for treachery to his master. 5.Purity of Birth. The importance of pure descent is seeη in the stress laid on being a descendant of a Rṣi (ārseya). But, on the other hand, there are clear traces of another doctrine, which requires learning, and not physical descent, as the true criterion of Rsihood. In agreement with this is the fact that Satyakāma Jābāla was received as a pupil, though his parentage was unknown, his mother being a slave girl who had been connected with several men, and that in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa the ceremony on acceptance as a pupil required merely the name of the pupil. So Kavasa is taunted in the Rigveda Brāhmaṇas as being the son of a female slave (Dāsī), and Vatsa cleared himself of a similar imputation by a fire ordeal. Moreover, a very simple rite was adequate to remove doubts as to origin. In these circumstances it is doubtful whether much value attaches to the Pravara lists in which the ancestors of the priest were invoked at the beginning of the sacrifice by the Hotṛ and the Adhvaryu priests.66 Still, in many parts of the ritual the knowledge of two or more genera¬tions was needed, and in one ceremony ten ancestors who have drunk the Soma are required, but a literal performance of the rite is excused. Moreover, there are clear traces of ritual variations in schools, like those of the Vasisthas and the Viśvāmitras. 6. The Conduct of the Brahmin. The Brahmin was required to maintain a fair standard of excellence. He was to be kind to all and gentle, offering sacrifice and receiving gifts. Especial stress was laid on purity of speech ; thus Viśvan- tara’s excuse for excluding the Syaparnas from his retinue was their impure (apūtā) speech. Theirs was the craving for knowledge and the life of begging. False Brahmins are those who do not fulfil their duties (cf, Brahmabandhu). But the penances for breach of duty are, in the Sūtras, of a very light and unimportant character. 7. Brahminical Studies. The aim of the priest is to obtain pre-eminence in sacred knowledge (brahma-varcasam), as is stated in numerous passages of Vedic literature. Such distinction is not indeed confined to the Brahmin: the king has it also, but it is not really in a special manner appropriate to the Kṣatriya. Many ritual acts are specified as leading to Brahmavarcasa, but more stress is laid on the study of the sacred texts : the importance of such study is repeatedly insisted upon. The technical name for study is Svādhyāya : the śatapatha Brāhmana is eloquent upon its advantages, and it is asserted that the joy of the learned śrotriya, or ‘student,’ is equal to the highest joy possible. Nāka Maudgfalya held that study and the teaching of others were the true penance (tapas).7δ The object was the ‘ threefold knowledge’ (trayī vidyā), that of the Rc, Yajus, and Sāman, a student of all three Vedas being called tri-śukriya or tn-sukra, ‘thrice pure.’ Other objects of study are enumerated in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, in the Taittirīya Aranyaka, the Chāndogya Upanisad, etc. (See Itihāsa, Purāna; Gāthā, Nārāśamsī; Brahmodya; Anuśās- ana, Anuvyākhyāna, Anvākhyāna, Kalpa, Brāhmaria; Vidyā, Ksatravidyā, Devajanavidyā, Nakçatravidyā, Bhūta- vidyā, Sarpavidyā; Atharvāñgirasah, Daiva, Nidhi, Pitrya, Rāśi; Sūtra, etc.) Directions as to the exact place and time of study are given in the Taittirīya Araṇyaka and in the Sūtras. If study is carried on in the village, it is to be done silently (manasā); if outside, aloud (vācā).
Learning is expected even from persons not normally competent as teachers, such as the Carakas, who are recognized in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa as possible sources of information. Here, too, may be mentioned the cases of Brahmins learning from princes, though their absolute value is doubtful, for the priests would naturally represent their patrons as interested in their sacred science: it is thus not necessary to see in these notices any real and independent study on the part of the Kṣatriyas. Yājñavalkya learnt from Janaka, Uddālaka Aruni and two other Brahmins from Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, Drptabālāki Gārgya from Ajātaśatru, and five Brahmins under the lead of Aruṇa from Aśvapati Kaikeya. A few notices show the real educators of thought: wandering scholars went through the country and engaged in disputes and discussions in which a prize was staked by the disputants. Moreover, kings like Janaka offered rewards to the most learned of the Brahmins; Ajātaśatru was jealous of his renown, and imitated his generosity. Again, learned women are several times mentioned in the Brāhmaṇas. A special form of disputation was the Brahmodya, for which there was a regular place at the Aśvamedha (‘ horse sacrifice ’) and at the Daśarātra (‘ ten-day festival,). The reward of learning was the gaining of the title of Kavi or Vipra, ‘ sage.’ 8. The Functions of the Brahmin. The Brahmin was required not merely to practise individual culture, but also to give others the advantage of his skill, either as a teacher or as a sacrificial priest, or as a Purohita. As a teacher the Brahmin has, of course, the special duty of instructing his own son in both study and sacrificial ritual. The texts give examples of this, such as Áruṇi and Svetaketu, or mythically Varuṇa and Bhṛgu. This fact also appears from some of the names in the Vamśa Brāhmana" of the Sāmaveda and the Vamśa (list of teachers) of the śāñkhāyana Áraṇyaka. On the other hand, these Vamśas and the Vamśas of the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa show that a father often preferred to let his son study under a famous teacher. The relation of pupil and teacher is described under Brahmacarya. A teacher might take several pupils, and he was bound to teach them with all his heart and soul. He was bound to reveal everything to his pupil, at any rate to one who was staying with him for a year (saηivatsara-vāsin), an expression which shows, as was natural, that a pupil might easily change teachers. But, nevertheless, certain cases of learning kept secret and only revealed to special persons are enumerated. The exact times and modes of teaching are elaborately laid down in the Sūtras, but not in the earlier texts. As priest the Brahmin operated in all the greater sacrifices; the simple domestic {grhya) rites could normally be performed without his help, but not the more important rites {śrauta). The number varied : the ritual literature requires sixteen priests to be employed at the greatest sacrifices (see Rtvij), but other rites could be accomplished with four, five, six, seven, or ten priests. Again, the Kauçītakins had a seventeenth priest beside the usual sixteen, the Sadasya, so called because he watched the performance from the Sadas, seat.’ In one rite, the Sattra (‘sacrificial session') of the serpents, the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, adds three more to the sixteen, a second Unnetṛ, an Abhigara, and an Apagara. The later ritual places the Brahman at the head of all the priests, but this is probably not the early view (see Brahman). The sacrifice ensured, if properly performed, primarily the advantages of the sacrificer (yajamāna), but the priest shared in the profit, besides securing the Daksiṇās. Disputes between sacrificers and the priests were not rare, as in the case of Viśvantara and the śyāparṇas, or Janamejaya and the Asitamrgras and the Aiçāvīras are referred to as undesirable priests. Moreover, Viśvāmitra once held the post of Purohita to Sudās, but gave place to Vasiṣtha. The position of Purohita differed considerably from that of the ordinary priest, for the Purohita not merely might officiate at the sacrifice, but was the officiator in all the private sacrifices of his king. Hence he could, and undoubtedly sometimes did, obtain great influence over his master in matters of secular importance; and the power of the priesthood in political as opposed to domestic and religious matters, no doubt rested on the Purohita. There is no recognition in Vedic literature of the rule later prevailing by which, after spending part of his life as a Brahma- cārin, and part as a householder, the Brahmin became an ascetic (later divided into the two stages of Vānaprastha, ‘forest-dweller,’ and Samnyāsin, ‘mystic ’). Yājñavalkya's case shows that study of the Absolute might empty life of all its content for the sage, and drive him to abandon wife and family. In Buddhist times the same phenomenon is seen applying to other than Brahmins. The Buddhist texts are here confirmed in some degree by the Greek authorities. The practice bears a certain resemblance to the habit of kings, in the Epic tradition,of retiring to the forest when active life is over. From the Greek authorities it also appears what is certainly the case in the Buddhist literature that Brahmins practised the most diverse occupations. It is difficult to say how far this was true for the Vedic period. The analogy of the Druids in some respects very close suggests that the Brahmins may have been mainly confined to their professional tasks, including all the learned professions such as astronomy and so forth. This is not contradicted by any Vedic evidence ; for instance, the poet of a hymn of the Rigveda says he is a poet, his father a physician (Bhiṣaj), and his mother a grinder of corn (Upala-prakṣiṇī). This would seem to show that a Brahmin could be a doctor, while his wife would perform the ordinary household duties. So a Purohita could perhaps take the field to assist the king by prayer, as Viśvāmitra, and later on Vasiṣtha do, but this does not show that priests normally fought. Nor do they seem normally to have been agriculturists or merchants. On the other hand, they kept cattle: a Brahmacarin’s duty was to watch his master’s cattle.129 It is therefore needless to suppose that they could not, and did not, on occasion turn to agricultural or mercan¬tile pursuits, as they certainly did later. But it must be remembered that in all probability there was more purity of blood, and less pressure of life, among the Brahmins of the Vedic age than later in Buddhist times, when the Vedic sacrificial apparatus was falling into grave disrepute. It is clear that the Brahmins, whatever their defects, represented the intellectual side of Vedic life, and that the Kṣatriyas, if they played a part in that life, did so only in a secondary degree, and to a minor extent. It is natural to suppose that the Brahmins also composed ballads, the precursors of the epic; for though none such have survived, a few stanzas of this character, celebrating the generosity of patrons, have been preserved by being embedded in priestly compositions. A legend in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa shows clearly that the Brahmins regarded civilization as being spread by them only: Kosala and Videha, no doubt settled by Aryan tribes, are only rendered civilized and habitable by the influence of pious Brahmins. We need not doubt that the non-Brahminical tribes (see Vrātya) had attained intellectual as well as material civilization, but it is reasonable to assume that their civilization was inferior to that of the Brahmins, for the history of Hinduism is the conquest by the Brahmins not by arms, but by mind of the tribes Aryan and non-Aryan originally beyond the pale. | | | bhiṣaj | ‘Physician is a word of common occurrence in the Rigveda and later. There is no trace whatever in the former text of the profession being held in disrepute: the Aśvins, Varuṇa, aṇd Rudra are all called physicians. On the other hand, in the Dharma literature this profession is utterly despised. This dislike is found as early as the Yajurveda Sarphitās, where the Aśvins are condemned because of their having to do with the practice of medicine (bhe§aja), on the ground that it brings them too much among men, an allusion to the caste dislike of promiscuous contact. despised. This dislike is found as early as the Yajurveda Sarphitās, where the Aśvins are condemned because of their having to do with the practice of medicine (bheṣaja), on the ground that it brings them too much among men, an allusion to the caste dislike of promiscuous contact. The Rigveda contains a hymn in which a physician celebrates his plants and their healing powers. Moreover, wonder¬ful cures are referred to as performed by the Aśvins: the healing of the lame and of the blind ; the rejuvenation of the aged Cyavana and of Puramdhi’s husband; the giving of an iron leg {jañghā āyasī) to Viśpalā, a deed only more wonderful if we assume that Viśpalā was a mare, as has been suggested by Pischel. It would in all probability be a mistake to assume that the Vedic Indians had any surgical skill: they no doubt applied simples to wounds, but both their medicine and their surgery must have been most primitive. All that the Atharvaveda shows in regard to medicine is the use of herbs combined with spells, and of water {cf. Jalāça), remedies Indo-European in character, but not of much scientific value. On the other hand, the knowledge of anatomy shown (see śarīra), though betraying grave inaccuracies, is not altogether insignificant; but that was due no doubt mainly to the practice of dissecting animals at the sacrifice.There is some evidence in the Rigveda that the practice of medicine was already a profession; this is supported by the inclusion of a physician in the list of victims at the Puruṣa- medha (‘human sacrifice’) in the Yajurveda. According to Bloomfield, a hymn of the Atharvaveda contains a physician’s deprecation of the use of home-made remedies instead of reliance on his professional training. | | | bhaimasena | ‘Descendant of Bhīmasena,’ is the name of a man in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā. | | | bhaimaseni | ‘Descendant of Bhīmasena,’ is the patronymic of Divodāsa in the Kāthaka Sarphitā. | | | madra | Denotes a people who are mentioned in the Bṛhad- āranyaka Upaniṣad Kāpya Patañcala was then living among them. Their name appears elsewhere in Vedic literature, only in that of a branch, the Uttara Madras, the ‘northern Madras,’ who are referred to in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa as living beyond the Himālaya (parena Himavantam) in the neighbourhood of the Uttara Kurus, probably, as Zimmer conjectures, in the land of Kaśmīr. The Madras mentioned in the Upaniṣad were, like the Kurus, probably settled somewhere in Kurukçetra in the Madhyadeáa or ‘Middle Land.’ Cf. Madrag-āra. | | | madhyadeśa | The ‘Middle Country,’ is, according to the Mānava Dharma śāstra, the land between the Himālaya in the north, the Vindhya in the south, Vinaáana in the west, and Prayāga (now Allahabad) in the east that is, between the place where the Sarasvatī disappears in the desert, and the point of the confluence of the Yamunā (Jumna) and the Gañgā (Ganges). The same authority defines Brahmarsi-deśa as denoting the land of Kuruksetra, the Matsyas, Pañcālas, and śūrasenakas, and Brahmāvarta as meaning the particularly holy land between the Sarasvatī and the Drṣadvatī. The Baudhāyana Dharma Sūtra4 defines Áryāvarta as the land east of Vinaśana; west of the Kālaka-vana, ‘ Black Forest,’ or rather Kanakhala, near Hardvār; south of the Himālaya; and north of the Pāriyātra or the Pāripātra Mountains; adding that, in the opinion of others, it was confined to the country between the Yamunā and the Gañgā, while the Bhāllavins took it as the country between the boundary-river (or perhaps the Saras-vatī) and the region where the sun rises. The Mānava Dharma śāstra, in accord with the Vasiṣṭha Dharma Sūtra, defines Áryāvarta as the region between the Vindhya and the Himālaya, the two ranges which seem to be the boundaries of the Aryan world in the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad also. The term Madhyadeśa is not Vedic, but it is represented in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa by the expression madhyamā pratisthā diś, ‘ the middle fixed region,’ the inhabitants of which are stated to be the Kurus, the Pañcālas, the Vaśas, and the Uśīnaras. The latter two peoples practically disappear later on, the Madhyadeśa being the country of the Kuru-Pañcālas, the land where the Brāhmaṇas and the later Samhitās were produced, bounded on the east by the Kosala-Videhas, and on the west by the desert. The western tribes are mentioned with disapproval both in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, while the tradition of the Brahminization of the Kosalas and the Videhas from the Kuru-Pañcāla country is preserved in the former Brāhmaṇa. | | | malimlu | In the Yajurveda Samhitā denotes a ‘robber,’ specifically, according to the commentator Mahīdhara, a burglar or housebreaker. Cf Tāyu, Taskara, Stena, and Deva-malimluc. | | | māna | Is the name of a man occurring in several passages of the Rigveda. In one place express mention is made of his son (sūnu), by whom, despite Bergaigne’s view to the contrary, Agfastya must be meant. In another passage, apparently the same meaning applies to Māna that is, Agastya as ‘a Māna.’ In a third passage the expression sūnave Mānena has been held by Sieg to be an inversion of Mānasya sūnimā, ‘by the son of Māna’ i.e., Agastya; but it seems more likely that either sūnor Māna is the fuller form of Agastya’s name (‘pride of the son,’ with reference to his high ancestry), or that the son of Māna ( = Agastya) is alluded to as interested in Viśpalā. The Mānas—that is, the descendants of Māna, are in several passages alluded to as singers. Cf. Mānya, Māndārya. | | | muni | Occurs in one hymn of the Rigveda where it seems to denote an ascetic of magic powers with divine afflatus (devesita), the precursor of the strange ascetics of later India* This agrees with the fact that Aitaśa, the Muni, is in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa regarded by his son as deranged, a view not unjustified if the nonsense which passes as the Aitaśapralāpa, ‘ Chatter of Aitaśa,’ was really his. The Rigveda calls Indra the ‘ friend of Munis,’ and the Atharvaveda refers to a ‘ divine Muni ’ (deva muni), by whom a similar ascetic may be meant. In the Upaniṣads6 the Muni is of a more restrained type: he is one who learns the nature of the Brahman, the Absolute, by study, or sacrifice, or penance, or fasting, or faith (:śraddha). It must not of course be thought that there is any absolute distinction between the older Muni and the later: in both cases the man is in a peculiar ecstatic condition, but the ideal of the Upaniṣads is less material than the earlier picture of the Muni, who is more of a ‘ medicine man ’ than a sage. Nor would it be wise to conclude from the comparative rareness of the mention of the Muni in the Vedic texts that he was an infrequent figure in Vedic times: he was probably not approved by the priests who followed the ritual, and whose views were essentially different from the ideals of a Muni, which were superior to earthly considerations, such as the desire for children and Dakṣiṇās. | | | mṛtyu | ‘Death,’ is repeatedly mentioned in the Rigveda and later as a thing of terror. There are a hundred and one forms of death, the natural one by old age (jam), and a hundred others, all to be avoided. To die before old age (purā jarasah) is to die before the allotted span (purā āy«sa#),β the normal length of life being throughout Vedic literature spoken of as a hundred years. On the other hand, the evils of old age in the loss of physical strength were clearly realized : one of the feats of the Aśvins was to restore old Cyavāna to his former youth and powers, and another was the rejuvenation of Kali. The Atharvaveda is full of charms of all sorts to avert death and secure length of years (āytisya). The modes of disposing of the dead were burial and cremation (see Ag’nidag’dha). Both existed in the early Vedic period, as in Greece; but the former method was on the whole less favoured, and tended to be regarded with disapproval. The bones of the dead, whether burned or not, were marked by the erection of a tumulus (śmaáāna): the śatapatha Brāhmana preserves traces of strong differences of opinion as to the mode in which these tumuli should be constructed. There is little or no trace of the custom common in northern lands of sending the dead man to sea in a burning ship: the reference to a ship seems to point to mythical perils after death, not to the mode of burial. The life after death was to the Vedic Indian a repetition of the life in this world. He passed into the next world sarυa- tanuh sūñgah, ‘ with whole body and all his members,’ enjoying there the same pleasures as he had enjoyed on earth. Even in the Rigveda there are hints of evil awaiting evil-doers, but it is not until the Atharvaveda and the Brāhmaṇas that a hell of punishment is set out, and it is in the Brāhmaṇas that good and evil deeds are said to produce happiness or hell hereafter. But there is no hint of extinction in the Rigveda as the fate of the wicked, as Roth inclined to think. The Vedic poet not being deeply moral, his verses do not convey, as would those of a man convinced of sin, warnings of future judgment. | | | menakā | See 2. Menā | | | maināka | ‘Descendant of Menakā,’ is the name of a mountain among the Himālayas in the Taittirlya Araṇyaka. There is a various reading Maināga. | | | yati | Is the name of an ancient clan which is connected with the Bhpgns in two passages of the Rigveda, where the Yatis certainly seem to be real persons. In another hymn,* however, they already appear as almost mythical. In the Yajurveda Samhitās,and elsewhere, the Yatis are a race whom Indra, in an evil moment, gave over to the hyaenas (Sālāvfka): exactly what is referred to is uncertain. Yati is mentioned with Bhṛgu in a verse of the Sāmaveda. | | | yati | Is the name of an ancient clan which is connected with the Bhpgns in two passages of the Rigveda, where the Yatis certainly seem to be real persons. In another hymn, however, they already appear as almost mythical. In the Yajurveda Samhitās, and elsewhere, the Yatis are a race whom Indra, in an evil moment, gave over to the hyaenas (Sālāvfka): exactly what is referred to is uncertain.Yati is mentioned with Bhṛgu in a verse of the Sāmaveda. | | | yudhāmśrauṣti augrrasainya | (‘Descendant of Ugrasena ’) is the name, in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, of a king who was anointed by Parvata and Nārada. | | | ratnin | Receiving gifts,’ is the term applied to those people of the royal entourage in whose houses the Ratna-havis, a special rite, was performed in the course of the Rājasūya or ‘ royal consecration.’ The list given in the Taittirīya Samhitā and the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa consists of the Brahman (i.e., the Purohita), the Rājanya, the Mahiṣī (the first wife of the king), the Vāvāta (the favourite wife of the king), the Parivṛktī (the discarded wife), the Senānī, ‘ commander of the army ’; the Sūta, ‘ charioteer ’; the Grāmaṇī, ‘ village headman ’;. the Kṣattṛ, ‘ chamberlain ’; the Samgrahītṛ, ‘ charioteer ’ or ‘ treasurer ’; the Bhāgadugha, ‘ collector of taxes ’ or ‘ divider of food ’; and the Akṣāvāpa, ‘ superintender of dicing ’ or ‘ thrower of dice.’ In the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa the order is Senānī; Purohita; Mahiṣī; Sūta; Grāmaṇī; Kṣattṛ; Sam- grahitṛ; Bhāgadugha; Akṣāvāpa; Go-nikartana, ‘ slayer of cows’ or ‘huntsman’; and Pālāgala, ‘courier’; the ‘discarded wife’ being mentioned as forbidden to stay at‘home on the day of the ceremony of offering a pap for Nirṛti in her house. In the Maitrāyaṇī Samhitā the list is Brahman (i.e., Puro¬hita) ; Rājan; Mahiṣī; Parivṛktī; Senānī; Saṃgrahītṛ; Kṣattṛ; Sūta; Vaiśyagrāmaṇī; Bhāgadugha; Takṣa-Rathakārau, ‘ carpenter and chariot-máker ’; Akṣāvāpa; and Go-vikarta. The Kāthaka Samhitā substitutes Go-vyacha for Govikarta, and omits Takṣa-Rathakārau. It will be seen that the list is essentially that of the royal household, and of the king’s servants in the administration of the country, though the exact sense of SamgTahītf, Bhāga- dug'ha, Sūta, Grāmaṇī, Kçattp, is open to reasonable doubt, mainly as to whether public officers or private servants are meant, for the names are of uncertain significance. A briefer list of eight Vīras, ‘ heroes,’ as among the friends of the king, is given in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana : brother, son, Purohita, Mahisī, Sūta, Grāmaṇī, Kṣattṛ, and Samgrahītṛ. | | | rājan | King,' is a term repeatedly occuring in the rigveda and the later literature. It is quite clear that the normal, though not universal form of government, in early India was that by kings, as might be expected in view of the fact that the Āryan Indian were invaders in a hostile territory : a situation which, as in the case of Ārayan invaders of Greece and German invaders of England, resulted almost necessarily in strengthening the monarchic element of the constitution. The mere patriarchal organization of society is not sufficient, as Zimmer assumes, to explain the Vedic kingship. Tenure of Monarchy.—Zimmer is of opinion that while the Vedic monarchy was sometimes hereditary, as is indeed shown by several cases where the descent can be traced,® yet in others the monarchy was elective, though it is not clear whether the selection by the people was between the members of the royal family only or extended to members of all the noble clans. It must, however, be admitted that the evidence for the elective monarchy is not strong. As Geldner argues, all the passages cited can be regarded not as choice by the cantons (Viś), but as acceptance by the subjects (viś): this seems the more prob¬able sense. Of course this is no proof that the monarchy was not sometimes elective: the practice of selecting one member of the family to the exclusion of another less well qualified is exemplified by the legend in Yāska of the Kuru brothers, Devāpi and śantanu, the value of which, as evidence of contemporary views, is not seriously affected by the legend itself being of dubious character and validity. Royal power was clearly insecure: there are several references to kings being expelled from their realms, and their efforts to recover their sovereignty, and the Atharvaveda contains spells in the interest of royalty. The King in War.—Naturally the Vedic texts, after the Rigveda, contain few notices of the warlike adventures that no doubt formed a very considerable proportion of the royal functions. But the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa contains the statement that the Kuru-Pañcāla kings, who, like the Brahmins of those tribes, stand as representatives of good form, used to make their raids in the dewy season. The word Udāja, too, with its variant Nirāja, records that kings took a share of the booty of war. The Rigveda13 has many references to Vedic wars: it is clear that the Kṣatriyas were at least as intent on fulfilling their duty of war as the Brahmins on sacrificing and their other functions. Moreover, beside offensive war, defence was a chief duty of the king: he is emphatically the ‘ protector of the tribe* (gopā janasya), or, as is said in the Rājasūya (‘royal consecration’), ‘protector of the Brahmin.’14 His Purohita was expected to use his spells and charms to secure the success of his king’s arms. The king no doubt fought in person: so Pratardana met death in war according to the Kausītaki Upanisad;16 and in the Rājasūya the king is invoked as ‘sacker of cities’ (purāψ bhettā). The King in Peace.—In return for his warlike services the king received the obedience—sometimes forced—of the people, and in particular their contributions for the maintenance of royalty. The king is regularly regarded as ‘ devouring the people,’ but this phrase must not be explained as meaning that he necessarily oppressed them. It obviously has its origin in a custom by which the king and his retinue were fed by the people’s contributions, a plan with many parallels. It is also probable that the king could assign the royal right of mainten¬ance to a Ksatriya, thus developing a nobility supported by the people. Taxation would not normally fall on Kṣatriya or Brahmin; the texts contain emphatic assertions of the exemption of the goods of the latter from the royal bounty. In the people, however, lay the strength of the king. See also Bali. In return the king performed the duties of judge. Himself immune from punishment (a-daiidya), he wields the rod of punishment (Daṇda). It is probable that criminal justice remained largely in his actual administration, for the Sūtras preserve clear traces of the personal exercise of royal criminal jurisdiction. Possibly the jurisdiction could be exercised by a royal officer, or even by a delegate, for a Rājanya is mentioned as an overseer (adhyaksa) of the punishment of a śūdra in the Kāthaka Samhitā. In civil justice it may be that the king played a much less prominent part, save as a court of final appeal, but evidence is lacking on this head. The Madhyamaśi of the Rigveda was probably not a royal, but a private judge or arbitrator. A wide criminal jurisdiction is, however, to some extent supported by the frequent mention of Varuna’s spies, for Varuṇa is the divine counterpart of the human king. Possibly such spies could be used in' war also. There is no reference in early Vedic literature to the exercise of legislative activity by the king, though later it is an essential part of his duties. Nor can we say exactly what executive functions devolved on the king. In all his acts the king was regularly advised by his Purohita ; he also had the advantage of the advice of the royal ministers and attendants (see Ratnin). The local administration was entrusted to the Grāmartī, or village chief, who may have been selected or appointed by the'king. The outward signs of the king’s rank were his palace and his brilliant dress. The King as Landowner.—The position of the king with regard to the land is somewhat obscure. The Greek notices,30 in which, unhappily, it would be dangerous to put much trust, since they were collected by observers who were probably little used to accurate investigations of such matters, and whose statements wore based on inadequate information, vary in their statements. In part they speak of rent being paid, and declare that only the king and no private person could own land, while in part they refer to the taxation of land. Hopkins is strongly of opinion that the payments made were paid for protection —i.e., in modern terminology as a tax, but that the king was recognized as the owner of all the land, while yet the individual or the joint family also owned the land. As against Baden- Powell, who asserted that the idea of the king as a landowner was later, he urges for the Vedic period that the king, as we have seen, is described as devouring the people, and that, according to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the Vaiśya can be devoured at will and maltreated (but, unlike the śūdra, not killed); and for the period of the legal Sūtras and śāstras he cites Bṛhaspati and Nārada as clearly recognizing the king’s overlordship, besides a passage of the Mānava Dharma Sāstra which describes the king as ‘lord of all a phrase which Būhler35 was inclined to interpret as a proof of landowning. The evidence is, however, inadequate to prove what is sought. It is not denied that gradually the king came to be vaguely con¬ceived—as the English king still is—as lord of all the land in a proprietorial sense, but it is far more probable that such an idea was only a gradual development than that it was primitive. The power of devouring the people is a political power, not a right of ownership; precisely the same feature can be traced in South Africa,3® where the chief can deprive a man arbitrarily of his land, though the land is really owned by the native. The matter is ultimately to some extent one of terminology, but the parallel cases are in favour of distinguishing between the political rights of the crown, which can be transferred by way of a grant, and the rights of ownership. Hopkins37 thinks that the gifts of land to priests, which seems to be the first sign of land transactions in the Brāhmaṇas, was an actual gift of land; it may have been so in many cases, but it may easily also have been the grant of a superiority : the Epic grants are hardly decisive one way or the other. For the relations of the king with the assembly, see Sabhā ; for his consecration, see Rājasūya. A rāja-tā, lack of a king,’ means‘anarchy.’ | | | varṇa | (lit. ‘colour’) In the Rigveda is applied to denote classes of men, the Dāsa and the Aryan Varṇa being contrasted, as other passages show, on account of colour. But this use is confined to distinguishing two colours: in this respect the Rigveda differs fundamentally from the later Samhitās and Brāhmaṇas, where the four castes (varnūh) are already fully recognized. (a) Caste in the Rigveda.—The use of the term Varṇa is not, of course, conclusive for the question whether caste existed in the Rigveda. In one sense it must be admitted to have existed: the Puruṣa-sūkta, ‘hymn of man,’ in the tenth Maṇdala clearly contemplates the division of mankind into four classes—the Brāhmaṇa, Rājanya, Vaiśya, and śūdra. But the hymn being admittedly late,6 its evidence is not cogent for the bulk of the Rigveda.' Zimmer has with great force com- batted the view that the Rigveda was produced in a society that knew the caste system. He points out that the Brāhmaṇas show us the Vedic Indians on the Indus as unbrah- minized, and not under the caste system; he argues that the Rigveda was the product of tribes living in the Indus region and the Panjab; later on a part of this people, who had wandered farther east, developed the peculiar civilization of the caste system. He adopts the arguments of Muir, derived from the study of the data of the Rigveda, viz.: that (a) the four castes appear only in the late Purusasūkta; (6) the term Varṇa, as shown above, covers the three highest castes of later times, and is only contrasted with Dāsa; (c) that Brāhmaṇa is rare in the Rigveda, Kṣatriya occurs seldom, Rājanya only in the Purusasūkta, where too, alone, Vaiśya and śūdra are found; (d) that Brahman denotes at first ‘poet,’ ‘sage,’ and then ‘ officiating priest,’ or still later a special class of priest; (e) that in some only of the passages where it occurs does Brahman denote a ‘priest by profession,’ while in others it denotes something peculiar to the individual, designating a person distinguished for genius or virtue, or specially chosen to receive divine inspiration. Brāhmaṇa, on the other hand, as Muir admits, already denotes a hereditary professional priesthood. Zimmer connects the change from the casteless system of the Rigveda to the elaborate system of the Yajurveda with the advance of the Vedic Indians to the east, comparing the Ger¬manic invasions that transformed the German tribes into monarchies closely allied with the church. The needs of a conquering people evoke the monarch; the lesser princes sink to the position of nobles ; for repelling the attacks of aborigines or of other Aryan tribes, and for quelling the revolts of the subdued population, the state requires a standing army in the shape of the armed retainers of the king, and beside the nobility of the lesser princes arises that of the king’s chief retainers, as the Thegns supplemented the Gesiths of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies. At the same time the people ceased to take part in military matters, and under climatic influences left the conduct of war to the nobility and their retainers, devoting themselves to agriculture, pastoral pursuits, and trade. But the advantage won by the nobles over the people was shared by them with the priesthood, the origin of whose power lies in the Purohitaship, as Roth first saw. Originally the prince could sacrifice for himself and the people, but the Rigveda itself shows cases, like those of Viśvāmitra and Vasiçtha illustrating forcibly the power of the Purohita, though at the same time the right of the noble to act as Purohita is seen in the case of Devāpi Arṣtisena.le The Brahmins saw their opportunity, through the Purohitaship, of gaining practical power during the confusion and difficulties of the wars of invasion, and secured it, though only after many struggles, the traces of which are seen in the Epic tradition. The Atharvaveda also preserves relics of these conflicts in its narration of the ruin of the Spñjayas because of oppressing Brahmins, and besides other hymns of the Atharvaveda, the śatarudriya litany of the Yajurveda reflects the period of storm and stress when the aboriginal population was still seething with discontent, and Rudra was worshipped as the patron god of all sorts of evil doers. This version of the development of caste has received a good deal of acceptance in it's main outlines, and it may almost be regarded as the recognized version. It has, however, always been opposed by some scholars, such as Haug, Kern, Ludwig, and more recently by Oldenberg25 and by Geldner.25 The matter may be to some extent simplified by recognizing at once that the caste system is one that has progressively developed, and that it is not legitimate to see in the Rigveda the full caste system even of the Yajurveda; but at the same time it is difficult to doubt that the system was already well on its way to general acceptance. The argument from the non- brahminical character of the Vrātyas of the Indus and Panjab loses its force when it is remembered that there is much evidence in favour of placing the composition of the bulk of the Rigveda, especially the books in which Sudās appears with Vasiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra, in the east, the later Madhyadeśa, a view supported by Pischel, Geldner, Hopkins,30 and Mac¬donell.81 Nor is it possible to maintain that Brahman in the Rigveda merely means a ‘poet or sage.’ It is admitted by Muir that in some passages it must mean a hereditary profession ; in fact, there is not a single passage in which it occurs where the sense of priest is not allowable, since the priest was of course the singer. Moreover, there are traces in the Rigveda of the threefold or fourfold division of the people into brahma, ksafram, and vitofi, or into the three classes and the servile population. Nor even in respect to the later period, any more than to the Rigveda, is the view correct that regards the Vaiśyas as not taking part in war. The Rigveda evidently knows of no restriction of war to a nobility and its retainers, but the late Atharvaveda equally classes the folk with the bala, power,’ representing the Viś as associated with the Sabhā, Samiti, and Senā, the assemblies of the people and the armed host. Zimmer explains these references as due to tradition only; but this is hardly a legitimate argument, resting, as it does, on the false assumption that only a Kṣatriya can fight. But it is (see Kçatriya) very doubtful whether Kṣatriya means anything more than a member of the nobility, though later, in the Epic, it included the retainers of the nobility, who increased in numbers with the growth of military monarchies, and though later the ordinary people did not necessarily take part in wars, an abstention that is, however, much exaggerated if it is treated as an absolute one. The Kṣatriyas were no doubt a hereditary body; monarchy was already hereditary (see Rājan), and it is admitted that the śūdras were a separate body: thus all the elements of the caste system were already in existence. The Purohita, indeed, was a person of great importance, but it is clear, as Oldenberg37 urges, that he was not the creator of the power of the priesthood, but owed his position, and the influence he could in consequence exert, to the fact that the sacrifice required for its proper performance the aid of a hereditary priest in whose possession was the traditional sacred knowledge. Nor can any argument for the non-existence of the caste system be derived from cases like that of Devāpi. For, in the first place, the Upaniṣads show kings in the exercise of the priestly functions of learning and teaching, and the Upaniṣads are certainly contemporaneous with an elaborated caste system. In the second place the Rigvedic evidence is very weak, for Devāpi, who certainly acts as Purohita, is not stated in the Rigveda to be a prince at all, though Yāska calls him a Kauravya; the hymns attributed to kings and others cannot be vindicated for them by certain evidence, though here, again, the Brāhmaṇas do not scruple to recognize Rājanyarṣis, or royal sages’; and the famous Viśvāmitra shows in the Rigveda no sign of the royal character which the Brāhmaṇas insist on fastening on him in the shape of royal descent in the line of Jahnu. (6) Caste in the later Samhitās and Brāhmanas. The relation between the later and the earlier periods of the Vedic history of caste must probably be regarded in the main as the hardening of a system already formed by the time of the Rigveda. etc. Three castes Brāhmaṇa, Rājan, śūdraare mentioned in the Atharvaveda, and two castes are repeatedly mentioned together, either Brahman and Kṣatra, or Kṣatra and Viś. 2.The Relation of the Castes. The ritual literature is full of minute differences respecting the castes. Thus, for example, the śatapatha prescribes different sizes of funeral mounds for the four castes. Different modes of address are laid down for the four castes, as ehi, approach ’; āgaccha, ‘come’; ādrava, run up ’; ādhāva, hasten up,’ which differ in degrees of politeness. The representatives of the four castes are dedicated at the Puruṣamedha (‘human sacrifice’) to different deities. The Sūtras have many similar rules. But the three upper castes in some respects differ markedly from the fourth, the śūdras. The latter are in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa declared not fit to be addressed by a Dīkṣita, consecrated person,’ and no śūdra is to milk the cow whose milk is to be used for the Agnihotra ('fire-oblation’). On the other hand, in certain passages, the śūdra is given a place in the Soma sacrifice, and in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa there are given formulas for the placing of the sacrificial fire not only for the three upper castes, but also for the Rathakāra, chariot-maker.’ Again, in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the Brāhmaṇa is opposed as eater of the oblation to the members of the other three castes. The characteristics of the several castes are given under Brāhmaṇa, Kçatriya and Rājan, Vaiśya, śūdra: they may be briefly summed up as follows : The Viś forms the basis of the state on which the Brahman and Kṣatra rest;®3 the Brahman and Kṣatra are superior to the Viś j®4 while all three classes are superior to the śūdras. The real power of the state rested with the king and his nobles, with their retainers, who may be deemed the Kṣatriya element. Engaged in the business of the protection of the country, its administration, the decision of legal cases, and in war, the nobles subsisted, no doubt, on the revenues in kind levied from the people, the king granting to them villages (see Grāma) for their maintenance, while some of them, no doubt, had lands of their own cultivated for them by slaves or by tenants. The states were seemingly small there are no clear signs of any really large kingdoms, despite the mention of Mahārājas. The people, engaged in agriculture, pastoral pursuits, and trade (Vaṇij), paid tribute to the king and nobles for the protection afforded them. That, as Baden- Powell suggests, they were not themselves agriculturists is probably erroneous; some might be landowners on a large scale, and draw their revenues from śūdra tenants, or even Aryan tenants, but that the people as a whole were in this position is extremely unlikely. In war the people shared the conflicts of the nobles, for there was not yet any absolute separation of the functions of the several classes. The priests may be divided into two classes the Purohitas of the kings, who guided their employers by their counsel, and were in a position to acquire great influence in the state, as it is evident they actually did, and the ordinary priests who led quiet lives, except when they were engaged on some great festival of a king or a wealthy noble. The relations and functions of the castes are well summed up in a passage of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, which treats of them as opposed to the Kṣatriya. The Brāhmaṇa is a receiver of gifts (ā-dāyī), a drinker of Soma (ā-pāyī), a seeker of food (āvasāyī), and liable to removal at will (yathākāma-prayāpyaīi).n The Vaiśya is tributary to another (anyasya balikrt), to be lived on by another (anyasyādyal}), and to be oppressed at will (yathā- kāma-jyeyal}). The śūdra is the servant of another (anyasya j>resyah), to be expelled at will (kāmotthāpyah), and to be slain at pleasure {yathākāma-vadhyah). The descriptions seem calculated to show the relation of each of the castes to the Rājanya. Even the Brāhmaṇa he can control, whilst the Vaiśya is his inferior and tributary, whom he can remove without cause from his land, but who is still free, and whom he cannot maim or slay without due process. The śūdra has no rights of property or life against the noble, especially the king. The passage is a late one, and the high place of the Kṣatriya is to some extent accounted for by this fact. It is clear that in the course of time the Vaiśya fell more and more in position with the hardening of the divisions of caste. Weber shows reason for believing that the Vājapeya sacrifice, a festival of which a chariot race forms an integral part, was, as the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra says, once a sacrifice for a Vaiśya, as well as for a priest or king. But the king, too, had to suffer diminution of his influence at the hands of the priest: the Taittirīya texts show that the Vājapeya was originally a lesser sacrifice which, in the case of a king, was followed by the Rājasūya, or consecration of him as an overlord of lesser kings, and in that of the Brahmin by the Bṛhaspatisava, a festival celebrated on his appointment as a royal Purohita. But the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa exalts the Vājapeya, in which a priest could be the sacrificer, over the Rājasūya, from which he was excluded, and identifies it with the Bṛhaspatisava, a clear piece of juggling in the interests of the priestly pretentions. But we must not overestimate the value of such passages, or the exaltation of the Purohita in the later books of the śatapatha and Aitareya Brāhmanas as evidence of a real growth in the priestly power: these books represent the views of the priests of what their own powers should be, and to some extent were in the Madhyadeśa. Another side of the picture is presented in the Pāli literature, which, belonging to a later period than the Vedic, undoubtedly underestimates the position of the priests ; while the Epic, more nearly contemporaneous with the later Vedic period, displays, despite all priestly redaction, the temporal superiority of the nobility in clear light. Although clear distinctions were made between the different castes, there is little trace in Vedic literature of one of the leading characteristics of the later system, the impurity communicated by the touch or contact of the inferior castes, which is seen both directly in the purification rendered necessary in case of contact with a śūdra, and indirectly in the prohibition of eating in company with men of lower caste. It is true that prohibition of eating in company with others does appear, but hot in connexion with caste: its purpose is to preserve the peculiar sanctity of those who perform a certain rite or believe in a certain doctrine; for persons who eat of the same food together, according to primitive thought, acquire the same characteristics and enter into a sacramental communion. But Vedic literature does not yet show that to take food from an inferior caste was forbidden as destroying purity. Nor, of course, has the caste system developed the constitution with a head, a council, and common festivals which the modern caste has; for such an organization is not found even in the Epic or in the Pāli literature. The Vedic characteristics of caste are heredity, pursuit of a common occupation, and restriction on intermarriage. 3. Restrictions on Intermarriage. Arrian, in his Indica, probably on the authority of Megasthenes, makes the prohibi¬tion of marriage between <γevη, no doubt castes,’ a characteristic of Indian life. The evidence of Pāli literature is in favour of this view, though it shows that a king could marry whom he wished, and could make his son by that wife the heir apparent. But it equally shows that there were others who held that not the father’s but the mother’s rank determined the social standing of the son. Though Manu recognizes the possibility of marriage with the next lower caste as producing legitimate children, still he condemns the marriage of an Aryan with a woman of lower caste. The Pāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra allows the marriage of a Kṣatriya with a wife of his own caste or of the lower caste, of a Brahmin with a wife of his own caste or of the two lower classes, and of a Vaiśya with a Vaiśya wife only. But it quotes the opinion of others that all of them can marry a śūdra wife, while other authorities condemn the marriage with a śūdra wife in certain circumstances, which implies that in other cases it might be justified. The earlier literature bears out this impression: much stress is laid on descent from a Rṣi, and on purity of descent ; but there is other evidence for the view that even a Brāhmaṇa need not be of pure lineage. Kavaṣa Ailūṣa is taunted with being the son of a Dāsī, ‘slave woman,’ and Vatsa was accused of being a śūdrā’s son, but established his purity by walking unhurt through the flames of a fire ordeal. He who is learned (śiiśruvān) is said to be a Brāhmaṇa, descended from a Rṣi (1ārseya), in the Taittirīya Samhitā; and Satyakāma, son of Jabālā, was accepted as a pupil by Hāridrumata Gautama, though he could not name his father. The Kāthaka Samhitā says that knowledge is all-important, not descent. But all this merely goes to show that there was a measure of laxity in the hereditary character of caste, not that it was not based on heredity. The Yajurveda Samhitās recognize the illicit union of Árya and śūdrā, and vice versa: it is not unlikely that if illicit unions took place, legal marriage was quite possible. The Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, indeed, recognizes such a case in that of Dīrghatamas, son of the slave girl Uśij, if we may adopt the description of Uśij given in the Brhaddevatā. In a hymn of the Atharvaveda extreme claims are put forward for the Brāhmaṇa, who alone is a true husband and the real husband, even if the woman has had others, a Rājanya or a Vaiśya: a śūdra Husband is not mentioned, probably on purpose. The marriage of Brāhmaṇas with Rājanya women is illustrated by the cases of Sukanyā, daughter of king śaryāta, who married Cyavana, and of Rathaviti’s daughter, who married śyāvāśva. 4.Occupation and Caste.—The Greek authorities and the evidence of the Jātakas concur in showing it to have been the general rule that each caste was confined to its own occupations, but that the Brāhmaṇas did engage in many professions beside that of simple priest, while all castes gave members to the śramaṇas, or homeless ascetics. The Jātakas recognize the Brahmins as engaged in all sorts of occupations, as merchants, traders, agriculturists, and so forth. Matters are somewhat simpler in Vedic literature, where the Brāhmaṇas and Kṣatriyas appear as practically confined to their own professions of sacrifice and military or administrative functions. Ludwig sees in Dīrgliaśravas in the Rigveda a Brahmin reduced by indigence to acting as a merchant, as allowed even later by the Sūtra literature; but this is not certain, though it is perfectly possible. More interesting is the question how far the Ksatriyas practised the duties of priests; the evidence here is conflicting. The best known case is, of course, that of Viśvāmitra. In the Rigveda he appears merely as a priest who is attached to the court of Sudās, king of the Tftsus ; but in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa he is called a king, a descendant of Jahnu, and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa refers to śunahśepa’s succeeding, through his adoption by Viśvāmitra, to the divine lore (daiva veda) of the Gāthins and the lordship of the Jahnus. That in fact this tradition is correct seems most improbable, but it serves at least to illustrate the existence of seers of royal origin. Such figures appear more than once in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, which knows the technical terms Rājanyarçi and Devarājan corresponding to the later Rājarṣi, royal sage.’ The Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa says of one who knows a certain doctrine, ‘being a king he becomes a seer’ (rājā sann rsir bhavati), and the Jaiminiya Upanisad Brāhmana applies the term Rāj'anya to a Brāhmaṇa. Again, it is argued that Devāpi Árstiseṇa, who acted as Purohita, according to the Rigveda, for śantanu, was a prince, as Yāska says or implies he was. But this assumption seems to be only an error of Yāska’s. Since nothing in the Rigveda alludes to any relationship, it is impossible to accept Sieg’s view that the Rigveda recognizes the two as brothers, but presents the fact of a prince acting the part of Purohita as unusual and requiring explanation. The principle, however, thus accepted by Sieg as to princes in the Rigveda seems sound enough. Again, Muir has argued that Hindu tradition, as shown in Sāyaṇa, regards many hymns of the Rigveda as composed by royal personages, but he admits that in many cases the ascription is wrong; it may be added that in the case of Prthī Vainya, where the hymn ascribed to him seems to be his, it is not shown in the hymn itself that he is other than a seer; the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa calls him a king, but that is probably of no more value than the later tradition as to Viśvāmitra. The case of Viśvantara and the śyāparṇas mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa has been cited as that of a king sacrificing without priestly aid, but the interpretation iś quite uncertain, while the parallel of the Kaśyapas, Asitamrgas, and Bhūtavīras mentioned in the course of the narrative renders it highly probable that the king had other priests to carry out the sacrifice. Somewhat different are a series of other cases found in the Upaniṣads, where the Brahma doctrine is ascribed to royal persons. Thus Janaka is said in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa to have become a Brahman; Ajātaśatru taught Gārgya Bālāki Pravāhaṇa Jaivali instructed śvetaketu Áruṇeya, as well as śilaka śālāvatya and Caikitāyana Dālbhya; and Aśvapati Kaikeya taught Brahmins. It has been deduced from such passages that the Brahma doctrine was a product of the Kṣatriyas. This conclusion is, however, entirely doubtful, for kings were naturally willing to be flattered by the ascription to them of philosophic activity, and elsewhere the opinion of a Rājanya is treated with contempt. It is probably a fair deduction that the royal caste did not much concern itself with the sacred lore of the priests, though it is not unlikely that individual exceptions occurred. But that warriors became priests, that an actual change of caste took place, is quite unproved by a single genuine example. That it was impossible we cannot say, but it seems not to have taken place. To be distinguished from a caste change, as Fick points out, is the fact that a member of any caste could, in the later period at least, become a śramaṇa, as is recorded in effect of many kings in the Epic. Whether the practice is Vedic is not clear: Yāska records it of Devāpi, but this is not evidence for times much anterior to the rise of Buddhism. On the other hand, the Brahmins, or at least the Purohitas, accompanied the princes in battle, and probably, like the mediaeval clergy, were not unprepared to fight, as Vasistha and Viśvāmitra seem to have done, and as priests do even in the Epic from time to time. But a priest cannot be said to change caste by acting in this way. More generally the possibility of the occurrence of change of caste may be seen in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa,138 where śyāparṇa Sāyakāyana is represented as speaking of his off¬spring as if they could have become the nobles, priests, and commons of the śalvas; and in the Aitareya Brāhmana,139 where Viśvantara is told that if the wrong offering were made his children would be of the three other castes. A drunken Rṣi of the Rigveda140 talks as if he could be converted into a king. On the other hand, certain kings, such as Para Átṇāra, are spoken of as performers of Sattras, ‘sacrificial sessions.’ As evidence for caste exchange all this amounts to little; later a Brahmin might become a king, while the Rṣi in the Rigveda is represented as speaking in a state of intoxication; the great kings could be called sacrificers if, for the nonce, they were consecrated (dīksita), and so temporarily became Brahmins.The hypothetical passages, too, do not help much. It would be unwise to deny the possibility of caste exchange, but it is not clearly indicated by any record. Even cases like that of Satyakāma Jābāla do not go far; for ex hypothesi that teacher did not know who his father was, and the latter could quite well have been a Brahmin. It may therefore be held that the priests and the nobles practised hereditary occupations, and that either class was a closed body into which a man must be born. These two Varṇas may thus be fairly regarded as castes. The Vaiśyas offer more difficulty, for they practised a great variety of occupations (see Vaiśya). Fick concludes that there is no exact sense in which they can be called a caste, since, in the Buddhist literature, they were divided into various groups, which themselves practised endogamy such as the gahapatis, or smaller landowners, the setthis, or large merchants and members of the various guilds, while there are clear traces in the legal textbooks of a view that Brāhmana and Kṣatriya stand opposed to all the other members of the community. But we need hardly accept this view for Vedic times, when the Vaiśya, the ordinary freeman of the tribe, formed a class or caste in all probability, which was severed by its free status from the śūdras, and which was severed by its lack of priestly or noble blood from the two higher classes in the state. It is probably legitimate to hold that any Vaiśya could marry any member of the caste, and that the later divisions within the category of Vaiśyas are growths of divisions parallel with the original process by which priest and noble had grown into separate entities. The process can be seen to-day when new tribes fall under the caste system: each class tries to elevate itself in the social scale by refusing to intermarry with inferior classes on equal terms—hypergamy is often allowed—and so those Vaiśyas who acquired wealth in trade (śreṣthin) or agriculture (the Pāli Gahapatis) would become distinct, as sub-castes, from the ordinary Vaiśyas. But it is not legitimate to regard Vaiśya as a theoretic caste; rather it is an old caste which is in process of dividing into innumerable sub-castes under influences of occupation, religion, or geographical situation. Fick denies also that the śūdras ever formed a single caste: he regards the term as covering the numerous inferior races and tribes defeated by the Aryan invaders, but originally as denoting only one special tribe. It is reasonable to suppose that śūdra was the name given by the Vedic Indians to the nations opposing them, and that these ranked as slaves beside the three castes—nobles, priests, and people—just as in the Anglo-Saxon and early German constitution beside the priests, the nobiles or eorls, and the ingenui, ordinary freemen or ceorls, there was a distinct class of slaves proper; the use of a generic expression to cover them seems natural, whatever its origin (see śūdra). In the Aryan view a marriage of śūdras could hardly be regulated by rules; any śūdra could wed another, if such a marriage could be called a marriage at all, for a slave cannot in early law be deemed to be capable of marriage proper. But what applied in the early Vedic period became no doubt less and less applicable later when many aboriginal tribes and princes must have come into the Aryan community by peaceful means, or by conquest, without loss of personal liberty, and when the term śūdra would cover many sorts of people who were not really slaves, but were freemen of a humble character occupied in such functions as supplying the numerous needs of the village, like the Caṇdālas, or tribes living under Aryan control, or independent, such as the Niṣādas. But it is also probable that the śūdras came to include men of Aryan race, and that the Vedic period saw the degradation of Aryans to a lower social status. This seems, at any rate, to have been the case with the Rathakāras. In the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa the Rathakāra is placed as a special class along with the Brāhmaṇas, Rājanyas, and Vaiśyas: this can hardly be interpreted except to mean that the Rathakāras were not included in the Aryan classes, though it is just possible that only a subdivision of the Vaiśyas is meant. There is other evidence that the Rathakāras were regarded as śūdras. But in the Atharvaveda the Rathakāras and the Karmāras appear in a position of importance in connexion with the selection of the king; these two classes are also referred to in an honourable way in the Vājasaneyi Sarphitā; in the śata¬patha Brāhmaṇa, too, the Rathakāra is mentioned as a a person of high standing. It is impossible to accept the view suggested by Fick that these classes were originally non- Aryan ; we must recognize that the Rathakāras, in early Vedic times esteemed for their skill, later became degraded because of the growth of the feeling that manual labour was not dignified. The development of this idea was a departure from the Aryan conception; it is not unnatural, however undesirable, and has a faint parallel in the class distinctions of modern Europe. Similarly, the Karmāra, the Takṣan the Carmamna, or ‘tanner,’ the weaver and others, quite dignified occupations in the Rigveda, are reckoned as śūdras in the Pāli texts. The later theory, which appears fully developed in the Dharma Sūtras, deduces the several castes other than the original four from the intermarriage of the several castes. This theory has no justification in the early Vedic literature. In some cases it is obviously wrong; for example, the Sūta is said to be a caste of this kind, whereas it is perfectly clear that if the Sūtas did form a caste, it was one ultimately due to occupation. But there is no evidence at all that the Sūtas, Grāmaηīs, and other members of occupations were real castes in the sense that they were endogamic in the early Vedic period. All that we can say is that there was a steady progress by which caste after caste was formed, occupation being an important determining feature, just as in modern times there are castes bearing names like Gopāla (cowherd ’) Kaivarta or Dhīvara ('fisherman'), and Vaṇij (‘merchant’). Fick finds in the Jātakas mention of a number of occupations whose members did not form part of any caste at all, such as the attendants on the court, the actors and dancers who went from village to village, and the wild tribes that lived in the mountains, fishermen, hunters, and so on. In Vedic times these people presumably fell under the conception of śūdra, and may have included the Parṇaka, Paulkasa, Bainda, who are mentioned with many others in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā and the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa in the list of victims at the Puruṣamedha (‘human sacrifice’). The slaves also, whom Fick includes in the same category, were certainly included in the term śūdra. 5. Origin of the Castes.—The question of the origin of the castes presents some difficulty. The ultimate cause of the extreme rigidity of the caste system, as compared with the features of any other Aryan society, must probably be sought in the sharp distinction drawn from the beginning between the Aryan and the śūdra. The contrast which the Vedic Indians felt as existing between themselves and the conquered population, and which probably rested originally on the difference of colour between the upper and the lower classes, tended to accentuate the natural distinctions of birth, occupation, and locality which normally existed among the Aryan Indians, but which among other Aryan peoples never developed into a caste system like that of India. The doctrine of hypergamy which marks the practical working of the caste system, seems clearly to point to the feeling that the Aryan could marry the śūdrā, but not the śūdra the Aryā. This distinction probably lies at the back of all other divisions: its force may be illustrated by the peculiar state of feeling as to mixed marriages, for example, in the Southern States of America and in South Africa, or even in India itself, between the new invaders from Europe and the mingled population which now peoples the country. Marriages between persons of the white and the dark race are disapproved in principle, but varying degrees of condemnation attach to (1) the marriage of a man of the white race with a woman of the dark race; (2) an informal connexion between these two; (3) a marriage between a woman of the white race and a man of the dark race; and (4) an informal connexion between these two. Each category, on the whole, is subject to more severe reprobation than the preceding one. This race element, it would seem, is what has converted social divisions into castes. There appears, then, to be a large element of truth in the theory, best represented by Risley, which explains caste in the main as a matter of blood, and which holds that the higher the caste is, the greater is the proportion of Aryan blood. The chief rival theory is undoubtedly that of Senart, which places the greatest stress on the Aryan constitution of the family. According to Senart the Aryan people practised in affairs of marriage both a rule of exogamy, and one of endogamy. A man must marry a woman of equal birth, but not one of the same gens, according to Roman law as interpreted by Senart and Kovalevsky ; and an Athenian must marry an Athenian woman, but not one of the same γez/oç. In India these rules are reproduced in the form that one must not marry within the Gotra, but not without the caste. The theory, though attractively developed, is not convincing; the Latin and Greek parallels are not even probably accurate ; and in India the rule forbidding marriage within the Gotra is one which grows in strictness as the evidence grows later in date. On the other hand, it is not necessary to deny that the development of caste may have been helped by the family traditions of some gentes, or Gotras. The Patricians of Rome for a long time declined intermarriage with the plebeians; the Athenian Eupatridai seem to have kept their yevη pure from contamination by union with lower blood; and there may well have been noble families among the Vedic Indians who intermarried only among themselves. The Germans known to Tacitus163 were divided into nobiles and ingenui, and the Anglo-Saxons into eorls and ceorls, noble and non-noble freemen.1®4 The origin of nobility need not be sought in the Vedic period proper, for it may already have existed. It may have been due to the fact that the king, whom we must regard as originally elected by the people, was as king often in close relation with, or regarded as an incarnation of, the deity;165 and that hereditary kingship would tend to increase the tradition of especially sacred blood: thus the royal family and its offshoots would be anxious to maintain the purity of their blood. In India, beside the sanctity of the king, there was the sanctity of the priest. Here we have in the family exclusiveness of king and nobles, and the similar exclusiveness of a priesthood which was not celibate, influences that make for caste, especially when accompanying the deep opposition between the general folk and the servile aborigines. Caste, once created, naturally developed in different directions. Nesfield166 was inclined to see in occupation the one ground of caste. It is hardly necessary seriously to criticize this view considered as an ultimate explanation of caste, but it is perfectly certain that gilds of workers tend to become castes. The carpenters (Tak§an), the chariot-makers (Rathakāra), the fisher¬men (Dhaivara) and others are clearly of the type of caste, and the number extends itself as time goes on. But this is not to say that caste is founded on occupation pure and simple in its first origin, or that mere difference of occupation would have produced the system of caste without the interposition of the fundamental difference between Aryan and Dāsa or śūdra blood and colour. This difference rendered increasingly important what the history of the Aryan peoples shows us to be declining, the distinction between the noble and the non-noble freemen, a distinction not of course ultimate, but one which seems to have been developed in the Aryan people before the separation of its various.branches. It is well known that the Iranian polity presents a division of classes comparable in some respects with the Indian polity. The priests (Athravas) and warriors (Rathaesthas) are unmistakably parallel, and the two lower classes seem to correspond closely to the Pāli Gahapatis, and perhaps to the śūdras. But they are certainly not castes in the Indian sense of the word. There is no probability in the view of Senart or of Risley that the names of the old classes were later superimposed artificially on a system of castes that were different from them in origin. We cannot say that the castes existed before the classes, and that the classes were borrowed by India from Iran, as Risley maintains, ignoring the early Brāhmaṇa evidence for the four Varnas, and treating the transfer as late. Nor can we say with Senart that the castes and classes are of independent origin. If there had been no Varṇa, caste might never have arisen; both colour and class occupation are needed for a plausible account of the rise of caste. | | | vivadha | Seems to denote a yoke borne on the shoulders to enable one to carry a weight. But it is found in the Brāhmaṇas used only metaphorically in such phrases as vi-vivadha, ‘with the weight unequally distributed,’ and sa- vīvadhata, ‘equality of burden.’ | | | vṛṣaṇaśva | Is the name of a man referred to in the Rigveda, where Indra is called Menā, perhaps his ‘wife’ or ‘daughter.’ The same legend is alluded to in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the Sadvimśa Brāhmana, and the Taittirīya Araṇyaka, but it is clear that all of these texts had no real tradition of what was referred to. | | | veśa | Is a term of somewhat doubtful sense, apparently denoting * vassal,’ 'tenant,' in a few passages, and, according to Roth, 'dependent neighbour.' | | | vainya | ‘Descendant of Vena,’ is the patronymic of the mythic Prthi, Prthī, or Prthu. | | | vyāsa pārāśarya | (‘Descendant of Parāśara’) is the name of a mythical sage who in the Vedic period is found only as a pupil of Viçvaksena in the Vamśa (list of teachers) at the end of the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa and in the late Taittirīya Araṇyaka. | | | vrata | (‘Vow’) in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmaṇas has the peculiar sense of the ‘milk’ used by one who is living on that beverage alone as a vow or penance. | | | śakuni | ‘bird,’ is used practically like śakuna, but with a much clearer reference to divination. It was smaller than the Syena or Suparṇa,1 gave signs,2 and foretold ill-luck.3 When it is mentioned4 in the list of sacrificial victims at the Aśvamedha (‘ horse sacrifice ’), a special species must be meant: later the falcon is so called, but the ‘ raven ’ may be intended ; the commentator on the Taittirīya Samhitā thinks that it is the ‘crow.’ It is mentioned several times elsewhere.[1] | | | śamtanu | Is the hero of a tale told by Yāska, and often found later. He supersedes his elder brother Devāpi as king of the Kurus. When his improper deed brings on a prolonged drought in his realm, he is compelled to ask his brother to assume the kingship; Devāpi, however, refuses, but instead performs a sacrifice which produces rain. Sieg endeavours to trace this story in the Rigveda, but all that is there stated is that Devāpi Árṣtiseṇa obtained (no doubt as priest) rain for śamtanu (no doubt a king). There is no hint of relationship at all. | | | śikhaṇḍin yājñasena | (‘Descendant of Yajñasena’) is mentioned in the Kausītaki Brāhmaṇa as a priest of Keśin Dālbhya. | | | sarasvatī | Is the name of a river frequently mentioned in the Rigveda and later. In many passages of the later texts it is certain the river meant is the modern Sarasvatī, which loses itself in the sands of Patiala (see Vinaśana). Even Roth admits that this river is intended in some passages of the Rigveda. With the Drṣadvatī it formed the western boundary of Brahmāvarta (see Madhyadeśa). It is the holy stream of early Vedic India. The Sūtras mention sacrifices held on its banks as of great importance and sanctity. In many other passages of the Rigveda, and even later, Roth held that another river, the Sindhu (Indus), was really meant: only thus could it be explained why the Sarasvatī is called the ‘foremost of rivers’ (nadītamā), is said to go to the ocean, and is referred to as a large river, on the banks of which many kings, and, indeed, the five tribes, were located. This view is accepted by Zimmer and others. On the other hand, Lassen and Max Muller maintain the identity of the Vedic Sarasvatī with the later Sarasvatī. The latter is of opinion that in Vedic times the Sarasvatī was as large a stream as the Sutlej, and that it actually reached the sea either after union with the Indus or not, being the 'iron citadel,’ as the last boundary on the west, a frontier of the Panjab against the rest of India. There is no conclusive evidence of there having been any great change in the size or course of the Sarasvatī, though it would be impossible to deny that the river may easily have diminished in size. But there are strong reasons to accept the identification of the later and the earlier Sarasvatī throughout. The insistence on the divine character of the river is seen in the very hymn which refers to it as the support of the five tribes, and corresponds well with its later sacredness. Moreover, that hymn alludes to the Pārāvatas, a people shown by the later evidence of the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa to have been in the east, a very long way from their original home, if Sarasvatī means the Indus. Again, the Pūrus, who were settled on the Sarasvatī, could with great difficulty be located in the far west. Moreover, the five tribes might easily be held to be on the Sarasvatī, when they were, as they seem to have been, the western neighbours of the Bharatas in Kurukçetra, and the Sarasvatī could easily be regarded as the boundary of the Panjab in that sense. Again, the ‘seven rivers’ in one passage clearly designate a district: it is most probable that they are not the five rivers with the Indus and the Kubhā (Cabul river), but the five rivers, the Indus and the Sarasvatī. Nor is it difficult to see why the river is said to flow to the sea: either the Vedic poet had never followed the course of the river to its end, or the river did actually penetrate the desert either completely or for a long distance, and only in the Brāhmaṇa period was its disappear ance in the desert found out. It is said, indeed, in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā21 that the five rivers go to the Sarasvatī, but this passage is not only late (as the use of the word Deśa shows), but it does not say that the five rivers meant are those of the Panjab. Moreover, the passage has neither a parallel in the other Samhitās, nor can it possibly be regarded as an early production; if it is late it must refer to the later Sarasvatī. Hillebrandt,22 on the whole, adopts this view of the Saras¬vatī,23 but he also sees in it, besides the designation of a mythical stream, the later Vaitaraṇī,24 as well as the name of the Arghandab in Arachosia.25 This opinion depends essentially on his theory that the sixth Mandala of the Rigveda places the scene of its action in Iranian lands, as opposed to the seventh Maṇdala: it is as untenable as that theory itself. Brunn-hofer at one time accepted the Iranian identification, but later decided for the Oxus, which is quite out of the question. See also Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa. | | | sārvaseni | (‘Descendant of Sarvasena’) is the patronymic of śauceya in the Taittirīya Samhitā. | | | sālāvṛka | Is found twice in the Rigveda apparently denoting the ‘hyaena’ or 'wild dog.’ This sense also seems appropriate in the later narrative of the destruction of the Yatis by Indra, who is said to have handed them over to the Sālāvṛkas. Sālā- vrkeya is a variant form of the same word, meaning literally ‘ descendant of a Sālāvṛka.’ The feminine is Sālāvrkī, but in the Taittirīya Samhitā it appears as Salāvṛkī. Cf Tarakṣu. | | | suparṇa | ‘Well-winged,’ designates a large bird of prey, the ‘eagle’ or the ‘vulture,’ in the Rigveda and later. In the passages in which it appears as an eater of carrion it must be the vulture. The Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa mentions an eagle which separates milk from water like the Kruftc. In the Rigveda the Suparṇa is said to be the child of the śyena, and is distinguished from the latter in another passage: this led Zimmer to think that the falcon is probably meant. The Atharvaveda alludes to its cry, and describes it as living in the hills. | | | senānī | Leader of an army,' is the title of the royal ‘general.’ He is mentioned in the Rigveda, where also the word is used metaphorically. He is also referred to in the śatarudriya, as well as elsewhere in the Yajurveda Samhitās and Brāhmaṇas. He is one of the Ratnins of the king. Presumably he was appointed by the king, not by the people, to command in war when the king became too important to lead every little fray in person. In the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa this official is called Senā-pati. | | | svara | Denotes in the Upaniṣads the sound of a vowel: these are described as being ghosavant, ‘sonant,’ and also as balavant, ‘ uttered with force.’ The precise word for a mute is sparśa, ‘ contact,’ while ūsman denotes a ‘sibilant,’ and svara a ‘vowel,’ in the Aitareya and śāñkhāyana Áraṇyakas. The semivowels are there denoted by anta-sthā (‘intermediate’) or aksara. Another division in the Aitareya Aranyaka is into ghosa, ūsman, and vyañjana, apparently ‘vowels,’ ‘ sibilants,’ and ‘consonants’ respectively. Ghosa elsewhere in that Aranyaka seems to have the general sense of ‘sounds.’ The Taittirlya Upaniṣad refers to mātrā, a ‘ mora ’; bala, ‘ force ’ of utterance, and varna, ‘letter,’ an expression found elsewhere in the explanation of om, as compacted of a + u -f- in. The Aitareya Araṇyaka and the śāñkhāyana Araṇyaka recognize the three forms of the Rigveda text as pratrnna, nirbhuja, and'ubhayain-antarena, denoting respectively the Sarphitā, Pada, and Krama Pāthas of the Rigveda. The same authorities recognize the importance of the distinction of the cerebral and dental n and s, and refer to the Māṇdūkeyas’ mode of recitation. They also discuss Sandhi, the euphonic ‘combination’ of letters. The Prātiśākhyas of the several Samhitās develop in detail the grammatical terminology, and Yāska's Nirukta contains a good deal of grammatical material. The śatapatha Brāhmaṇa distinguishes the genders, and the Pañcaviφśa Brāhmana the division of words in the Sāman recitation. | |
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