Religious Development
Great changes took place in the religious life of the people. The lustre of the older gods was gradually dimmed, though one would still find, here and there, especially in the Atharva Veda, magnificent hymns celebrating the omniscience of Varuna or the beneficence of the Earth-Goddess. The sacrificial side of religion was greatly developed by the priests, while the popular superstitious belief in spirits, imps, spells, incantations and witchcraft found a place in the sacred canon. The monotheistic and monistic tendencies, that showed themselves prominently towards the close of the Rig-Vedic period, became more marked with the efflux of time. Prajapati, the lord of created beings, cast all the older deities into the shade. The germ of the later doctrine of the Avataras, or divine “descents” or incarnations, can be traced in stories about Prajapati assuming the form of a boar to raise the earth from the primeval waters and becoming a tortoise when about to create offspring. While the priests and the theologians were absorbed in elaborate sacrificial rites and muttered litanies in honour of Prajapati, the First Sacrificer and the Embodiment of Sacrifice, philosophers threw doubts on the efficacy of ritual, speculated about the underlying unity of the universe, and strove for union with the supreme Brahman or Paramatman, the universal Soul or the Absolute “that dwelleth in every thing, that guideth all beings within, the Inward Guide, Immortal.”
The common people, however, did not understand abstruse theological or philosophicalShiva speculations and began to show predilection for certain deities already known to the Rig- Veda but not so prominent as Indra or Varuna. One of them was Rudra, who already bore in the early litanies the epithet of Siva (propitious) and soon came to be regarded as the Great God (Mahadeva) and the lord of animate beings (Pasupati). His popularity may have been due to his identification with the chief male deity of the pre-historic people of the Indus.
Side by side with Rudra arose another figure-Vishnu, a solar deity famed in the Rig-Veda for his three strides. As the source of cosmic and moral order, the deliverer of mankind in distress and saviour of the Gods, Vishnu soon came to occupy the place of Varuna as the most sublime among the celestials, and his highest step (paramampadam) became the goal of sages and seers. Before the final close of the Vedic canon, he came to be identified with Vasudeva -hero or demi-god known to epic tradition as Krishna-Devakiputra. In one Upanishad we find Krishna associated with a school of thought that rejected the purely ritualistic interpretation of sacrifice and considered the practice of virtue to be as effective as gifts to priests. In the final hour one should, according to this school, take refuge in these three thoughts: “You are the imperishable, the never-falling and the very essence of life.” The goal of spiritual endeavour according to them, was the realm of light higher than heaven where dwelleth the God among the gods. Here we see the germ Of some of the doctrines that received a more systematic treatment in later ages and lay at the root of the Bhagavata creed.
Literature and Science,
Before the close of the Vedic period, the Aryans possessed an extensive literature handed down in the Brahmanical schools by memory. Some idea of the wide range of subjects in which the people interested themselves may be obtained from several lists given in the Upanishads. One such list makes mention not only of the Vedas but of Itihasa-purana (legend and ancient lore), Pitrya (the science relating to the Manes)) Rasi (mathematics), Daiva (knowledge of portents), Nidhi (chronology), Vakovakya (dialectics), Ekayana (ethics), Deva-vidya (etymological interpretation of divine names), Brahmavidya (knowledge of the Absolute) Bhutavidya (demonology, or science of elements), Kshatra vidya (the military science), Nakshatra vidya (astronomy), Sarpa vidya (the science of snakes), and Devajana vidya (dancing and music or mythology). Another list mentions the Vedas, phonetics (siksha), ritual (kalpa), grammar (vyakarana), etymology (nirukta), metrics (chhandas) and astronomy (jyotisha). If all the subjects mentioned in the former list were dealt with in special treatises, most of them have not come down to us. A brief account of the extant works of Vedic literature included in the second list is given below.
The word Veda comes from the root vid, to know. It means knowledge in general. it is specially applied to a branch of literature which has been handed down from time immemorial by verbal transmission and is declared to be sacred knowledge or divine revelation (Sruti).
The Veda, consists of four different classes of literary compositions :
(1)The Mantra (saying, song, formula) constitutes the oldest division of Vedic literature, and is distributed in four Samhitas or collections known as the Rik, Sama, Yajus, and Atharva Samhitas. The first three am sometimes spoken of as the Trayi or threefold knowledge, being alone recognised at first as canonica scriptures.
The Rik-Samhita is a collection of lyrics in praise of different gods. These were recited by the priest styled the hotri. Most of the songs belong to an age anterior to what we have called the Later Vedic period, but the collection as a whole may not be so old. The Samhita of the Samaveda, or the Book of Chants, contains hardly any independent matter, all its verses except seventy-five being taken directly from the Rig-Veda. Its songs were meant to be sung at the Soma sacrifice by a special class of priests called Udgatri. The Samhita of the Yajurveda, or Book of Sacrificial Prayer, consists not only of stanzas taken from the Rig-Veda, but also of original prose formulas to be uttered by the Adhvaryu priest who performed the manual work involved in a sacrifice. The collection has two divergent texts, viz (a) the Samhita of the Black Yajurveda preserved in the Taittiriya, Maitrayani and Kathaka recensions, and (b) the Samhita of the White Yajurveda preserved in the Vajasaneyi recension.
At a time considerably later than the Samhitas mentioned above, a fourth attained to canonical recognition, the Atharva Veda, or the Book of Magic Formulas. Though its recognition came late, much of the matter contained in the collection is old. Some of the Atharvan hymns were of popular rather than priestly origin and may be as old as the earliest parts of the Rig- Veda. The Atharva-Samhita is, in the main, a collection of songs, spells and incantations for the healing of disease, the restoration of harmony, the exorcism of evil spirits, etc. But there are certain hymns of rare beauty that celebrate the power and omniscience of God and the beneficence of Mother Earth.
“May Earth pour out her milk for us,
a mother unto me her son.
0 Prithivi, auspicious be thy woodlands,
auspicious be thy hills and snow-clad mountains.”
(2)The second class of Vedic works are known by the name of Brahmanas, i.e. treatises relating to prayer and sacrificial ceremony. They are mainly prose text containing observations on sacrifice. They also contain cosmogonic myths, old legends and gathas or verses celebrating the exploits of kings famed in priestly tradition.
(3)Next come the Aranyakas or forest texts, books of instruction to be given in the forest or writings meant for wood-dwelling hermits, which are found as appendices to the Brahmanas. These treatises resemble the Brahmanas in language, style and even content, but they are concerned more with the allegorical signification of rites, and the mystic meaning of the texts of the Samhitas than with elaborate rules for the performance of the great sacrifices. The bulk of the Aranyaka literature is old, but certain portions may belong to a date posterior to the period under review.
(4)Lastly we have the Upanishads, “secret or esoteric doctrines.” The name is derived by some from the root upa-ni-sad which means “to sit down near some one” and is applied to doctrines that may be imparted to a son or a trusted pupil seated near the teacher. The Upanishads are either imbedded in the Aranyakas or form their supplements. They are also found as independent works. They contain deep speculations of a philosophical character which “revolve around the two conceptions of Brahman and Atman”, i.e. the universal soul, the Absolute and the individual self. The oldest Upanishads are usually regarded as pre-Buddhistic, but some of the treatises bearing the name “Upanishad” certainly belong to a much later period.
The classes of literary works named above are alone classed as Sruti, or Revelation, and constitute the Vedic literature proper. But closely connected with them as auxiliary treatises, though not regarded as a part of the Revelation, there exist a class of compositions called Vedanga, “members or limbs of the Veda.” They are regarded as less authoritative than the Sruti, and are styled Smriti, memory or tradition, as handing down only the tradition derived from ancient sages to whom the Vedas were “revealed”. They originated mostly in Vedic schools (Charanas) and their contents are often expressed in an extremely condensed style of prose intended for memorization, to which the name Sutra (thread, clue, guide, rule, aphorism) is given. Some of the treatises were versified in later times.
The Vedangas are six in number, viz., Siksha (phonetics), Kalpa (ritual), Vyakarana (grammar), Nirukta (etymology), Chhandas (metrics), and Jyotisha (astronomy). These subjects are already mentioned in some of the Upanishads, though the extant manuals may belong to a much later period.
The manuals of Siksha deal with the correct pronunciation and accentuation of the Vedic hymns. The productions of the Siksha school include the “connected text” of the Rig-Veda as well as the “word-text” which gives the text of the verses in a complete ,grammatical analysis. But the most remarkable compositions of the Siksha class are the Pratisakhya Sutras which contain the rules by the aid of which the Samhita-patha (connected text) can be formed from the Pada-Patha (word-text).
The treatises on Kalpa or ritual include the Srauta Sutras which lay down rules for the performance of the great sacrifices, the Grihya Sutras which give directions for the simple ceremonies of daily life, and the Dharma Sutras which deal with sacred and secular law and administration. As integral parts of the Srauta Sutras are found compositions styled Sulva Sutras which lay down rules for the measurement and building of the place of sacrifice and the fire-altars, and are the oldest treatises on Indian geometry. There are manuals supplementary to the Kalpa Sutras styled Parisishtas or addenda. In Vyakarana, Nirukta and Chhandas we have the great work of Panni, Yaska, and Pingala. A metrical work on a Jyotish Vedanga is extant, but it seems to belong to a comparatively late date.