Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists

Preface

Sister NIVEDITA, to whom the present work was first entrusted, needs no introduction to Western or to Indian readers. A most sincere disciple of Swami Vivekananda, who was himself a follower of the great Ramakrishna, she brought to the study of Indian life and literature a sound knowledge of Western educational and social science, and an unsurpassed enthusiasm of devotion to the peoples and the ideals of her adopted country. Her chief works are The Web of Indian Life^ almost the only fair account of Hindu society written in English, and Kail the Mother^ where also for the first time the profound tenderness and terror of the Indian Mother-cult are presented to Western readers in such a manner as to reveal its true religious and social significance. Through these books Nivedita became not merely an interpreter of India to Europe, but even more, the inspiration of a new race of Indian students, no longer anxious to be Anglicized, but convinced that all real progress, as distinct from mere political controversy, must be based on national ideals, upon intentions already clearly expressed in religion and art.

Sister Nivedita’s untimely death in 1911 has made it necessary that the present work should be completed by another hand. The following parts of the text as here printed are due to Sister Nivedita : Mythology of the Indo-Aryan races (pp. 1-5) ; pp. 14-22 of the Introduction to the Ramayana ; the whole of the Mahabharata {except pp. 186-190) ; part of the section on Shiva (pp. 291-295) ; the comment on Kacha and DevayanI (pp. 339-342) ;

V and the Story of Dhruva, Shani, Star-Pictures, etc. (pp. 378-388). The present writer is responsible for all else — rather more than two-thirds of the whole.

The illustrations are reproduced from water-colour drawings executed specially for this book by Indian artists under the supervision of Mr. Abanindro Nath Tagore, C.I.E., Vice-Principal of the Calcutta School of Art, who has himself contributed some of the pictures.

The stories have thus the advantage, unique in the present series, of illustration by artists to whom they have been familiar from childhood, and who are thus well able to suggest their appropriate spiritual and material environment.

It may be well to explain briefly the principle on which these myths and legends have been selected and arranged. My aim has been to relate in a manner as close to the original as possible, but usually much condensed, such of the myths as are more or less familiar to every educated Indian, with whom I include all those illiterate but wise peasants and women whose knowledge of the Purdnas has been gained by listening to recitations or reading, by visiting temples (where the stories are illustrated in sculpture), or from folk-songs or mystery-plays. The stories related here, moreover, include very much of which a knowledge is absolutely essential for every foreigner who proposes in any way to co-operate with the Indian people for the attainment of their desired ends — nowhere more clearly formulated than in mythology and art. Amongst these are, I hope, to be included not only such avowed lovers of Indian ideals as was Nivedita herself,

VI

Preface

but also civil servants and missionaries. The Indian myths here retold include almost all those which are commonly illustrated in Indian sculpture and painting. Finally, they include much that must very soon be recognized as belonging not only to India, but to the whole world; I feel that this is above all true of the Ramayana, which is surely the best tale of chivalry and truth and the love of creatures that ever was written.

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY

Vll

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I MYTHOLOGY OF THE INDO-ARYAN RACES i

II THE RAMAYANA 6

CHAPTER I : MYTHOLOGY OF THE INDO-ARYAN RACES The Shidy of Mythology

IN the early history of man Asia formed a vast breedingground of civilization of which countries like Egypt, Arabia, Greece, India, and China were the extremities. Egypt and Arabia were destined later, from their geographical positions, to be overrun and suffer destruction of their culture. Greece and pre-eminently India formed what may be called culs~de-sac. Here, as if up the long shores of some hidden creek, would be forced the tidal wave of one epoch after another, each leaving on the coast a tide-mark that perhaps none of its successors would be able entirely to cover. Hence, in India, we may hope to discover means of studying, as nowhere else in the world, the succession of epochs in culture.

Civilization develops by new conjunctions of tribes and races, each with its individual outlook, the result of that distinctive body of custom which has imposed itself upon them through the geographical conditions of whatever region formed their cradle-land and school. Western Asia is one of the central areas of the world. Here by the very necessities of the configuration the great highways from North to South and East to West meet, and mercantile cities — points of barter and exchange — will grow up at the crossways. Equally obvious is it that India and the remote parts of the Nile Valley will form seats of occupation and production. Here race upon race will settle and combine. Here agricultural nations will grow up. Here civilization will accumulate. And here we may look to see the gradual elaboration of schemes of thought which will not only bear their own history

A I

Stamped upon them, but will in their turn become causes and sources of dynamic influence upon the world outside.

It is not impossible to recover the story of the ideas which the Nile people have contributed to the world as we know it. But those people themselves, so we are informed, have irretrievably relaxed their hold upon their own past. Between them and it there is only broken continuity, a lapse of time that represents no process of cause and effect, but rather a perpetual interruption of such a series; for a single generation enamoured of foreign ways is almost enough in history to risk the whole continuity of civilization and learning. Ages of accumulation are entrusted to the frail bark of each passing epoch by the hand of the past, desiring to make over its treasures to the use of the future. It takes a certain stubbornness, a doggedness of loyalty, even a modicum of unreasonable conservatism maybe, to lose nothing in the long march of the ages; and, even when confronted with great empires, with a sudden extension of the idea of culture, or with the supreme temptation of a new religion, to hold fast what we have, adding to it only as much as we can healthfully and manfully carry.

The Genius of India

Yet this attitude is the criterion of a strong national genius, and in India, since the beginning of her history, it has been steadily maintained. Never averse to a new idea, no matter what its origin, India has never failed to put each on its trial. Avid of new thought, but jealously reluctant to accept new custom or to essay new expression, she has been slowly constructive, unfalteringly synthetic, from the earliest days to the present time.

The fault of Indian conservatism, indeed, has been its tendency to perpetuate differences without assimilation. 2

The Motives of Religion

There has always been room for a stronger race, with its own equipment of custom and ideals, to settle down in the interstices of the Brahmanical civilization, uninfluenced and uninfluencing. To this day Calcutta and Bombay have their various quarters — Chinese, Burmese, and what not — not one of which contributes to, or receives from, the civic life in the midst of which it is set. To this day the Baniya of India is the Phoenix or Phoenician, perhaps of an older world. But this unmixingness has not been uniform. The personality of Buddha was the source of an impulse of religion to China and half a dozen minor nations. The Gupta empire represents an epoch in which foreign guests and foreign cultures were as highly welcomed and appreciated in India as to-day in Europe and America. And finally only the rise of Islam was effective in ending these long ages of intercourse which have left their traces in the faith and thought of the Indian people.

The Motives of Religion

Hinduism is, in fact, an immense synthesis, deriving its elements from a hundred different directions, and incorporating every conceivable motive of religion. The motives of religion are manifold. Earth-worship, sunworship, nature-worship, sky-worship, honour paid to heroes and ancestors, mother-worship, father-worship, prayers for the dead, the mystic association of certain plants and animals : all these and more are included within Hinduism. And each marks some single age of the past, with its characteristic conjunction or invasion of races formerly alien to one another. They are all welded together now to form a great whole. But still by visits to outlying shrines, by the study of the literature of certain definite periods, and by careful following up of the special threads, it is possible to determine what were some of the influences that have entered into its making.

Now and again in history a great systematizing impulse has striven to cast all or part of recognized belief into the form of an organic whole. Such attempts have been made with more or less success in the compilation of books known as the Pu7mias, in the epic poem called the Rdmdyanay and most perfectly of all in the Mahdhhdrata. Each of these takes some ancient norm which has been perhaps for centuries transmitted by memory, and sets it down in writing, modifying it and adding to it in such ways as bring it, in the author’s eyes, up to date.

The Mahdbhdrata

The Mahabharata is the result of the greatest of the efforts thus made to conserve in a collected form all the ancient beliefs and traditions of the race. The name Mahabharata itself shows that the movement which culminated in the compilation of this great work had behind it a vivid consciousness of the unity of the Bharata or Indian people. For this reason one finds in this work a great effort made to present a complete embodiment of the ideals to be found in the social organism, religion, ancient history, mythology, and ethics of the Indian people.

Hence if we want to follow Indian mythology from its dim beginnings to its perfect maturity through all its multiform intermediate phases we cannot have a better guide than the Mahabharata. For in India mythology is not a mere subject of antiquarian research and disquisition ; here it still permeates the whole life of the people as a controlling influence. And it is the living mythology which, passing through the stages of representation of successive cosmic process and assuming definite shape

The Mahabharata

thereafter, has become a powerful factor in the everyday life of the people — it is this living mythology that has found place in the Mahabharata.

It should be understood that it is the mythology which has left its clearest impress in the Mahabharata that has attained a fully developed form, and exercised a potent influence on Indian society. Other myths have for a time appeared in a vague nebular form and then vanished like smoke, leaving little trace behind ; they have not assumed any concrete forms in the memory of the race. Thus it is that we And a popular saying prevalent in Bengal that “Whatever is not in the Mahabharata is not to be found in the land of Bharata [India].” In the Mahabharata we find on the one hand the primal forms of mythology, and on the other its fully developed forms also. We find in this creation of the Indian mind a complete revelation of that mind.

In the infancy of the human mind men used to mix up their own fancies and feelings with the ways of bird and beast, the various phenomena of land and water, and the movements of sun and moon and stars and planets, and viewed the whole universe in this humanified form. In later times, when man had attained the greatest importance in the eyes of man, the glory of stellar worlds paled before human greatness.

In this book we have dealt with both these stages of mythology, the initial as well as the final. On the one hand, we have given some glimpses of the primal forms which mythology assumed after passing through the hazy indefiniteness of primitive ages. On the other, we have related more fully the stories of the age when mythology had reached its maturity.

Chapter II : The Ramayana

ALMIKI is a name almost as shadowy as Homer.

He was, no doubt, a Brahman by birth, and closely connected with the kings of Ayodhya. He collected songs and legends of Rama (afterwards called Rama-Chandra, in distinction from Parashu-Rama) ; and very probably some additions were made to his work at a later time, particularly the Uttara Kmida, He is said to have invented the shloka metre, and the language and style of Indian epic poetr)^ owe their definite form to him. According to the Ramayana, he was a contemporary of Rama, and sheltered Sita during her years of lonely exile, and taught the Ramayana to her sons Kusa and Lava. The material of the Ramayana, in its simplest form, the story of the recovery of a ravished bride, is not unlike that of another great epic, the Iliad of Homer. It is not likely, however, although the view has been suggested, that the Iliad derives from the Ramayana : it is more probable that both epics go back to common legendary sources older than looo years b.c.

The story of Rama is told in one of the Jatakas, which may be regarded as a shorter version, one of many then current. Probably at some time during the last centuries preceding Christ the current versions of Rama’s saga were taken up by the Brahman poet, and formed into one story with a clear and coherent plot; while its complete form, with the added Uttara Kanda, may be as late as A.D. 400. As a whole, the poem in its last redaction seems to belong essentially to the earlier phase of the Hindu renaissance, and it reflects a culture very similar to that which is visibly depicted in the Ajanta frescoes (first 6

Sources

Ethic of the Ramayana

to seventh century a.d.) ; but of course the essential subject-matter is much more ancient. The version given in the present volume amounts to about one-twentieth of the whole Ramayana. It is a condensed translation, in which all the most essential matters are included ; while no episode or figure of speech has been added for which the original does not afford authority.

Ethic of the Ramayana

Not the least significant feature of Valmiki’s epic lies in its remarkable presentation of two ideal societies : an ideal good and an ideal evil. He abstracts, as it were, from human life an almost pure morality and an almost pure immorality, tempered by only so much of the opposite virtue as the plot necessitates. He thus throws into the strongest relief the contrast of good and evil, as these values presented themselves to the shapers of Hindu society. For it should be understood that not merely the lawgivers, like Manu, but also the poets of ancient India, conceived of their own literary art, not as an end in itself, but entirely as a means to an end — and that end, the nearest possible realization of an ideal society. The poets were practical sociologists, using the great power of their art deliberately to mould the development of human institutions and to lay down ideals for all classes of men. The poet is, in fact, a philosopher, in the Nietzschean sense of one who stands behind and directs the evolution of a desired type. Results have proved the wisdom of the chosen means; for if Hindu society has ever as a whole approached the ideal or ideals which have been the guiding force in its development, it is through hero-worship. The Vedas, indeed, belonged essentially to the learned; but the epics have been translated into every vernacular by poets, such as Tulsi Das and Kamban, ranking in power with Valmiki himself. The material of the epics, moreover, as also of many of the Purdnas, has been made familiar not only to the literate, but also to all the unlettered, not excepting women, by constant recitation, and also by means of the drama, in folk-song, and in painting. Until quite modern times no Hindu boy or girl grew up unfamiliar with the story of the Ramayana ; and their highest aspiration was to be like Rama or Sita.

The Mythical Origin of Caste

It is in Ramayana, and in the Laws of Manu {c, 500 b.c.) that we find the chief account of the ideal Hindu system of Colour (caste). The mythical origin of Colour, according to Manu, is as follows : Brahmans are sprung from the mouth, Kshatriyas from the arm, Vaishyas from the thigh, and Shudras from the foot of Brahma. This myth is true in an allegorical sense; it is used more literally to give divine sanction to the whole system. But it must not be supposed that Manu or Valmiki describes a state of society actually existing at any one time all over India. The history of Hindu society might much rather be written in terms of the degree of approach towards or divergence from the systems of the Utopists, Valmiki and Manu. How powerful their influence still is, compared even with the force of custom, appears in the fact that it is at the present day the aim of many reformers by no means to abolish the caste system, but gradually to unite the sub-castes until none but the four main Colours remain as effective social divisions.

This development, combined with some provision for the transference from one caste to another of those who are able and willing to adopt the traditions and accept the 8

Valmiki’s Ideal Society

discipline of a higher Colour, is what the present writer would also desire. Transference of caste, or the acquiring of Colour, is continually going on even now, by the absorption of aboriginal tribes into the Hindu system; but stories like those of Vishvamitra illustrate the immense theoretical difficulty of such promotions. Against this extreme exclusiveness many protests have arisen in India, the most notable being that of Buddha, who, so far from acceptingthe divine right of a Brahman by birth, taught that — Not by birth does one become a Brdhma7i :

By his actions alone one becomes a Brahman,

The strength of the hereditary principle has always prevailed against such reactions, and the most that reformers have actually accomplished is to create, new caste groups.

Vdlniikis Ideal Society

Let us now examine very briefly the nature of Valmiki’s ideal society. From the first we are impressed with its complexity and with the high degree of differentiation of the interdependent parts of which it is constituted. It is founded on the conception of gradation of rank, but that rank is dependent, not upon wealth, but upon mental qualities only. The doctrine of reincarnation is taken for granted ; and the conception of kanna (that the fruit of actions bears inevitable fruit in another life) being combined with this, the theory logically followed that rank must be determined solely by heredity. He who deserved to be born as a Brahman was born as a Brahman, and he who deserved to be born as a Shudra was born as a Shudra. This is the theory which finds practical expression in the caste system, or, as it is known to Indians, the system of “ Colour” (ya^ma), in modern vernacular, “birth ” (jdti). Fundamentally, there are four Colours : Brahmans, the priests and philosophers ; Kshatriyas, the ruling and knightly class ; Vaishyas, traders and agriculturists ; and Shudras — servants of the other three, who alone are “twice-born,” that is, receive priestly initiation in early manhood. Besides these, there are recognized a vast number of subdivisions of the four main classes, arising theoretically by intermarriage, and distinguishable in practice as occupation-castes.

For each Colour Hindu theory recognizes an appropriate duty and morality (dharma) : to follow any but the “ owndkarma ” of a man’s caste constituted a most disastrous sin, meriting condign punishment. In this conception of own-dharma there appears at once the profound distinction of Hindu from all absolutist moralities, such as the Mosaic or Buddhist. To take one concrete example, the Mosaic Decalogue lays down the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” and this commandment is nominally binding equally upon the philosopher, the soldier, and the merchant — a somewhat illogical position. But Hinduism, permeated though it be by the doctrine of ahimsa^ harmlessness, does not attempt to enforce it upon the Kshatriyas or Shudras : it is the hermit and philosopher above all who must not kill or hurt any living thing, while the knight who shrank, in time of need, from slaying men or animals would not be praiseworthy as a humanitarian, but blameworthy as one who neglected to follow his own-morality. This very question is raised in the Ramayana, when Sita suggests to Rama that, as they are now dwelling in the forests, the resort of hermits, they should adopt the yogl-mordWty^ and refrain from slaying, not merely beasts, but even the rdkshasas ; ^

‘ Rdkshasas^ daityas^ yaks has ^ and asuras are demons and devils constantly at war with men and gods. lO

Valmiki’s Ideal Society

but Rama replies that he is bound both by knightly duty and by promise to protect the hermits, and that he must obey the ordinance of chivalry.

In its extreme form this doctrine of own-morality is represented as having been fully realized in practice only in the golden age, when none but Brahmans practised asceticism, or attained to Perfect Enlightenment; in the second age the Brahmans and Kshatriyas were equally powerful, and it is said that in this age Manu composed the shastras (law-books) setting forth the duties of the four va7mas ; in the third age the Vaishyas also practised austerities ; and in the fourth even the Shudras engaged in austere penances. Thus the four ages represent a progressive deterioration from an ideal theocracy to a complete democracy. In the time of Rama the beginning of the fourth age is already foreshadowed by the one Shudra who became yogi^ and was slain by Rama, not so much as a punishment as to avoid the consequential disturbance of society, already manifested in the untimely death of a Brahman boy.

In an aristocratic society such as Valmiki contemplates the severity of social discipline increases toward the summit : those who have the greatest power must practise the greatest self-restraint, partly because noblesse oblige partly because such austere discipline is the necessary condition without which power would rapidly melt away. It is needful to remember this essential character of a true aristocratic society, if we are to understand some of the most significant, and to the democrat and individualist the most incomprehensible and indefensible, episodes of the Ramayana. Upon the Kshatriya, and above all upon the king, devolves the duty of maintaining dharma ; therefore he must not only protect men and gods against violence, as by slaying the rakshasas, but must himself for the sake of example conform to the rules of accepted morality, even when these rules have for him no personal significance whatever. It is thus that Rama repudiates Sita twice, though all the time perfectly satisfied in his own mind of her complete faithfulness. This repudiation of Sita forms the most dramatic and remarkable feature of the whole story. Rama and Sita are brought together after a year’s separation, and at the close of a long and arduous conflict : this moment, where modern sentiment would demand a “ happy ending,” is made the supreme test of character for both, and the final tragedy is only postponed by the appearance of the gods and justification of Sita by ordeal. In these tragic episodes, forming the culminating moral crisis in the lives of both Rama and Sita, Valmiki is completely and equally justified as a teacher and as an artist. Valmiki’s ideal society is almost free from sin, whereby he is the better enabled to exhibit the far-reaching effects of the ill-doing of single individuals and of only faults. Even Kaikeyl is not made ignoble : she is only very young and blind and wilful ; but the whole tragedy of Rama’s life and the fulfilment of the purposes of the high gods follows on her wrongdoing.

Over against this human world of the silver age is drawn the sinful and inhuman world of the rakshasas, where greed and lust and violence and deceit replace generosity and self-restraint and gentleness and truth. But these evil passions are outwardly directed against men and gods and all those who are, for the rakshasas, aliens: amongst themselves there are filial affection and the uttermost of wifely devotion, there are indomitable courage and the truest loyalty. The city of the rakshasas is pre-eminently fair, built by Vishvakarman himself ; they practise all the arts ; they worship the gods,

The Story

and by austerity and penance win great gifts of them : in a word, they flourish like the bay-tree, and if they are evil, at least they are not ignoble. Amongst them are found some, like Vibhishana, not evil at all. After all, then, these rakshasas are not inhuman at all, but their estate is an image of the a-dharmic^ unrighteous, aspect of human society — an allegory which we should all understand were it presented to us to-day for the first time, like the Penguins of Anatole France.

The Story

The siege of Lanka is told in the original at great length and with grotesque humour. But its violence is redeemed by many incidents of chivalric tenderness and loyalty. Ravana, once slain, is thought of by Rama as a friend ; Mandodarl grieves for him as Sita herself might grieve for Rama. The story is full of marvels, but the magic element has often a profound significance and is no merely fanciful embroidery. All the great powers possessed by the protagonists of one side or the other are represented as won by self-restraint and mental concentration, not as the fruit of any talisman fortuitously acquired. Thus the conflict becomes, in the last resort, essentially a conflict of character with character. Take again the case of the magic weapons, informed with the power of irresistible spells. Hanuman is struck down and paralysed with one of these, but no sooner are physical bonds added to the mental force than he is free. Here, surely, is clear evidence of an apprehension of the principle that to fortify with violence the power of wisdom is inevitably an unsuccessful policy.

In such ways the significance of Valmiki’s Ramayana becomes apparent to those who read or re-read it attentively, and its lasting influence on Indian life and character ideals becomes easily understandable. It is hardly possible to turn aside from this aspect of the myth of Rama and Sita without expressing profound regret that this great means of education should have been eliminated from modern educational systems in India — in the name of religious neutrality. For it would scarcely be going too far to say that no one unfamiliar with the story of Rama and Sita can be in any real sense a citizen of India, nor acquainted with morality as the greatest of Indian teachers conceived it. Perhaps one might go further and say that no one unfamiliar with the story of Rama and Sita can be a true citizen of the world.

T/ie Rdmayana as Animal Epos Here and there throughout the world we come upon whispers and echoes of the great animal epos of primitive man. As a whole it no longer exists ; it is no longer even recoverable. It can only be guessed at and inferred from a hint here, a fragment there. But nowhere in the modern world is the material for its restoration so abundant as in India. To this day in the Indian imagination there is a unique sympathy with animal expression. Man or boy, gentle and simple alike, telling some story of mouse or squirrel, will bring the tale to a climax with the very cries and movements of the creature he has watched. It is assumed instinctively that at least the fundamental feelings, if not the thoughts, of furred and feathered folk are even as our own. And it is here, surely, in this swift interpretation, in this deep intuition of kinship, that we find the real traces of the temper that went to the making long ago of Buddhism and Jainism, the gentle faiths.

The Ramayana as Animal Epos

The Indian people are human, and cruelty occurs amongst them occasionally. The fact that it is comparatively rare is proved by the familiarity and fearlessness of all the smaller birds and beasts. But in this unconscious attitude of the Indian imagination, in its mimicry and quick perception of the half fun, half pathos of the dumb creation, we have an actual inheritance from the childhood of the world, from that early playtime of man in which the four-footed things were his brethren and companions.

This whimsical spirit, this merry sense of kindred, speaks to us throughout the Buddhist Birth-Stories (Jdtakas)^ as a similar feeling does in ^Dsop’s Fables or in the tales of Uncle Remus. The Jdtakas^ it is true, deal with animal life as the vehicle of a high philosophy and a noble romance, instead of merely making it illustrate shrewd proverbs or point homely wit. The love of Buddha and Yashodara formed the poetic legend of its age, and there was nothing incongruous to the mind of the period in making birds and beasts frequent actors in its drama. Swans are the preachers of gospels in the courts of kings. The herds of deer, like men, have amongst them chiefs and aristocrats, who will lay down their lives for those that follow them. Yet already, even here, we see the clear Aryan mind at work, reducing to order and distinctness the tangled threads of a far older body of thought. Out of that older substance are born the tendencies that will again and again come to the surface in the great theological systems of later times. Of it were shaped the heroes, such as Hanuman and Garuda, who step down into the more modern arena at every new formulation of the Hindu idea, like figures already familiar, to join in its action.