Indian Antiquary Vol 08

SR No.: 032500
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 369

NOVEMBER, 1879.]
has in it nothing very august, and the prayer addressed to him by the offender may only indicate the natural fear of the feebler in presence of the stronger.
But the moral function of the god becomes clearly defined when he takes up not merely his own cause, but the cause of the fellows of the suppliant whom the latter has wronged. The idea that the gods regard and punish offences other than those which are committed directly against themselves, when it finds its way into naturalistic religions, gives them decidedly the moral character which was wanting to them originally. Now, this idea is expressed in passages of the Rig-Veda, which, it is true, are but few in number, but of the sense of which there can be no doubt. By means of these texts, passages much more numerous, in which the confession of the sinner is expressed in more general terms, receive a new light... It is fortunate that by this means the moral character of the Vedic religion, which might otherwise have been disputed, has been placed beyond doubt.
BOOK NOTICES.
But this moral character results from other considerations... It is true that the notion of a bargain between two contracting parties (the god and his worshipper),-'give me, I give thee'continued to be a sufficiently exact formula of the relations established by the Vedic worship between heaven and earth during the long period for which that worship survived the primitive conceptions from which it took its rise. But alongside of this rude idea of the relation between men and the deity, and of other conceptions of worship associated even more closely with the essential principles of the Vedic mythology, there had been formed another notion answering better to the moral requirements of humanity. Confidence in the divine goodness, for example, and repentance founded not only on the fear of punishment, but on regret for having violated a faithful friendship, (for the Rishis give their gods the title of friends,) are indisputable manifestations of moral consciousness.
What frequently still further elevates the conception of worship, and gives a moral tendency to the confession of a fault committed against the gods, is the idea that the latter regard, not merely the outward act of sacrifice, but the intention with which it is offered, and that without sincerity on the part of the sacrificer, the offerings cannot please them. This virtue of sincerity is, upon the whole, the chief Vedic virtue; or, to speak more exactly, the Vedic poets when referring, for the most part, in vague terms, to moral good and evil, most frequently mean to apply them to truth and falsehood. Another idea, the moral import of which could
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not be denied, is that of "law," as conceived by the Vedic bards. We shall see how the same words denote in turn laws natural, sacrificial, and moral; and the philological discussion of these terms, their primitive and derived significations, will illustrate the origin and development of the ideas themselves. The formation of the idea of law, so far as that idea can be applied to common and social morality, will not be the sole object of enquiry. In showing the resemblance of the laws of sacrifice to those which regulate the order of the world, I shall, says M. Bergaigne, exhibit the conception of the worship under a new aspect, which will result in enhancing its dignity, and will bring out the moral character of repentance testified for an offence against the gods, even if that offence consisted only in an infraction of liturgical prescriptions.
But the Vedic deities do not all interest themselves in the same degree in the distinction between moral good and evil, and are not all equally regarded as governing either the moral or the physical world, by immutable laws. In this double point of view the difference is especially profound between the warrior god Indra and those of the sovereign gods, who are called by the common name of Adityas, of whom the first is Varuna (pp. xxi.-xxiv.)
The author returns again thus in p. xxv. to the distinction in character between Indra and the Sovereign gods:
The essential difference between the deities belonging to these two conceptions, the one dualistic, the other unitarian, of the order of the world, is that the warrior god (Indra) opposed to a demon, is exclusively benevolent, whilst the sovereign gods, the authors of physical evil as well as physical good, have a character alternately benevolent and malevolent, which inspires their suppliants with terror as much as with love. That difference is also, in my opinion, the cause of the inequality in the aptitude of the divine personages to be invested with moral functions. The idea of malevolence became, in proportion as the sentiment of the divine majesty became more elevated, inseparable from the idea of justice. Indra, always beneficent, was not, and could not be, for the Vedic Aryas, anything but a friend. Varuna, alternately propitious and displeased, was their judge. The anger of the god could only be explained by the sin of men. It is thus that the half-demoniacal attributes of the sovereign gods in the order of natural phenomena appear to have been closely connected with their providential attributes in the order of moral ideas.
Whatever opinion may be formed by the scholars who occupy themselves with the same class of