The Land of the Veda

Front matter

THE

LAND OF THE VEDA

BEING

Chapter 02

CHAPTER II.

STATISTICS, MYTHOLOGY, AND VEDIC LITERATURE.

EVEN among educated men there is a very inadequate idea of what India really is. It is spoken of as though it were one country, with one language and one race of men, just as persons would speak of England or France; whereas India ought to be regarded as a number of nations, speaking twenty-three different languages, and devoted to various faiths and forms of civilization.

During the long period from the time of William the Conqueror till Clive fought the battle of Plassey in 1756, the Hindoos and Mohammedans maintained their diversity, and were as far from any unity or amalgamation when England entered the country, as they were when Mahmoud of Ghizni conquered Delhi. While the nations of Europe tended to unity, and fused their tribes and clans into homogeneous people, who gloried in a common faith and fatherland, these millions of hostile men have retained the sharp outlines of race, religion, language, and nationality as distinctly as ever.

The diversity of race is shown in the Coles, the Jats, the Santhals, the Tartars, the Shanars, the Mairs, the Karens, the Affghans, the Paharees, the Bheels; in religion, we have the Mohammedans, the Hindoos, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Parsees, the Pagans, and the Christians. While in nationality, there are the Bengalese, the Rohillas, the Burmans, the Mahrattas, the Seikhs, the Telugoos, the Karens, and many others.

India is thus, in fact, a congregation of nations, a crowd of civilizations, customs, languages, and types of humanity, thrown together, with no tendency to homogeneity, until an external civilization and a foreign faith shall make unity and common interest possible by educating and Christianizing them.

In regard to the real numbers of these wonderful people we are now able, from a census taken by the English Government last year, and also from Missionary Reports and other authorities, to furnish reliable civil and religious statistics of the Indian Empire. A few items are approximations, but they come as near to accuracy as is now necessary. India has an area of 1,577,698 square miles. It is nearly 2,000 miles from North to South, and 1,900 miles from East to West. The country is divided into 221 British Districts, and 153 Feudatory States, with a population of 212,671,621 souls.

The average density of this population to the square mile is 135 persons. But in Oude and Rohilcund (the mission field of the Methodist Episcopal Church) the density is 474 and 361 respectively, and is therefore probably the most compact population in the world. England has 367, and the United States only 26, persons to the square mile. As to race, this vast multitude of men are divided as follows:

In religion the native population are distributed, as nearly as we can approximate them, into

There are a few Jews, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Armenians, Nestorians, and others in the country, but of these we make no account here.

The vastness of this wonderful country may be further illustrated by the amazing number of languages spoken throughout its wide extent; and these are living languages, separate and distinct from each other, so that even the characters of their alphabets have no more similarity than the Greek letter has to the Roman. Nor do I include dialects of tongues, or languages of limited and local use, but those which are well known and extensively employed. Of such there are not less than twenty-three spoken in the various provinces of India. They are

1. The Urdu, (the Hindustanee proper,) the French of India, the language of the Mohammedans, of trade, etc.; spoken in Oude and Rohilcund, the Doab, and by traders generally;

2. The Bengalee, spoken in Bengal and eastward;

3. The Hindee, used in Oude, Rohilcund, Rajpootana, Bundlecund, and Malwa by the agricultural Hindoos, etc.;

4. The Punjabee, in the great Indus valley;

5. The Pushtoo, in Peshawar and the far West;

6. The Sindhee, in the Cis-Sutlej States and Sinde;

7. The Guzerattee, in Guzerat, and by the Parsees;

8. The Cutchee, in Cutch ;

9. The Cashmerian, in Cashmere;

10. The Nepaulese, in Nepaul ;

11. The Bhote, in Bootan ;

12. The Assamese, in Assam;

13, 14. The Burmese and Karen, in Burmah and Pegu;

15. The Singhalese, in Ceylon;

16. The Malayalim, in Travencore and Cochin;

17. The Tamul, from Madras to Cape Comorin;

18. The Canarese, in Mysore and Coorg;

19. The Teloogoo, in Hydrabad, and thence to the East Shore;

20. The Oorya, in Orissa;

21. The Cole and Gond, in Berar;

22. The Mahratta, in Bombay, Nagpore, and Gwalior; and

23. The Khassiya, in the North-east.

Add the English, and there are twenty-four living languages extensively spoken in India to-day! Nor is this all: the great classics of the leading tongaes, the ancient and venerable Pali, the Sanscrit, the Persian, and the Arabic are studied and used by the scholarship of India, because they hold in their charge the venerable treasures of their volumi

literature, and are as important to their faiths as sacred Greek is to Christianity.

Compare India with Europe, leaving out Russia, and she has more States, languages, and people. The principal tongues of Europe are the English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, Russ, Polish, Turkish, Greek, Dutch, Danish, Swede, Norwegian, and Finn—15. There were (according to the Census of 1861) in Europe 52 States, 15 languages, and 198,014,432 people; but, in India, there are 374 States, 23 languages, and 212,483,247 people. Giving India more States, more languages, and more population than all the great Western nations combined!

To understand what India is, and what was the force and importance of her great Sepoy Rebellion, and what is likely to be her relation to Christianity, and to the magnificent future which awaits her Hemisphere, the reader needs to understand and bear these facts in mind.

Of course, such a people are not destitute of national conceit. Indeed, the Hindoos hold up their heads with a sovereign sense of superiority above all other people on the earth. Admit their claims, and their system of chronology, and the assumptions of their history, and all other nations must hang their heads as modern novelties, and bow down in humility in the presence of a civilization of divine origin and a venerable aristocracy that counts its life and honors by millions of years! No Hindoo doubts but that his country is, or has been, the fount of all the blessings which have spread over the world, and in this rich conceit they hold it as a maxim that

“Min-as-shark talata ba kudrat ar-rahman, Anwar-ud-din wa al-ilm, wa al-umran.”

That is,

“From the East, by the power of the Merciful One, Lights of Science, Religion, and Culture have shone.”

The name India is apparently derived from the river Indus, and may have originated in the fact that that river divided this then unknown land from Persia and the world of ancient classical literature. The country is called in Sanscrit Bharatkund, from a dynasty of ancient kings; Punya Dhurma, “The Holy Land,” and also Djam-bhu-dwip, the “Peninsula of the Tree of Life.”

The trade of India is immense. The Imports are cotton cloth, jewelry, watches, stationery, hardware, metals, salt, silk, books, woolens, American ice, bullion, etc., etc.; and the Exports are coffee, tea, raw cotton, (in 1861 to England alone 3,295,000 cwt., producing there $47,500,000,) indigo, opium, ($50,000,000 annually,) saltpeter, jute, seeds, sugar, wool, (23,432,689 lbs. in 1865,) rice, raw silk, ivory, lac, oils, etc. The balance of trade is in favor of India, and the difference has to be paid in cash; so that the specie of England, Germany, and America is drained off to the East, and wealthy India grows richer all the time on a foreign commerce which has now risen to $577,000,000 (gold) per annum. The tonnage is at present 4,268,666 tons, and the revenue $249,646,040, which is only about $1 18 per head—an easier rate of taxation than is levied upon its people by any other civilized Government, while the proportion of the revenue spent on the Administration itself is equally economical. Deduct the annual charges for roads and bridges, police, jails, and courts of justice, education, canals, reservoirs, and irrigation, army, navy, telegraphs, public works, interest on Government securities, and it seems remarkable that the scanty remainder could meet all the charges of the Administration. The Hindoos well know that they were never so well and so cheaply governed as they are now. Their own testimony to this fact will be presented further on. If it were not for the extent to which the cultivated land is almost exclusively made to bear the burden, with its uncertain tenure, (though this is the practice in most Oriental Governments,) and the growth and sale of that vile opium, there would be little now to rebuke in the government of British India. Yet none are more earnest than some of the English themselves for the abolition of this reproach upon their fair fame.

There are seven railroads now running in different parts of the country, with an entire extent of 4,039 miles, and the total traffic receipts of which for the week ending April 22, 1871, was £140,220 11s. 4d., or $701,102, gold. Other lines are in process of construction. The telegraphs, 14,000 miles long, run all through India, while roads as feeders to the railways are being made over the land. But all has been done or furthered by the Government, and the whole has been accomplished during the past fifteen years.

The wealth of India has been proverbial since the time of Solomon, who imported therefrom his “ivory, apes, and peacocks.” It has also seemed to be inexhaustible. From the earliest antiquity, the merchants of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt sought to enrich themselves by her commerce; and when Europe awoke from her sleep of ages, and entered upon her career of improvement, her first efforts were directed toward gaining a share of the trade of the East. England, at length, entered the field, and soon outstripped all her rivals, Dutch, Portuguese, and French. Agreeably to the policy of the times, the East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth, and vested with the monopoly of the commerce of the East. And advancing by a steady progress, this giant Company, under the patronage of the Imperial power, at length held and governed, or protected, all that immense region.

A leading American journal very justly remarked on this subject, at the time of the great Sepoy Rebellion, that “the achievements by which these stupendous results have been effected are among the marvelous realities of history, compared with which the tales of romance are tame and spiritless. In future times they will, perhaps, constitute the most deeply-interesting portion of the history of our age. We believe that in the present troubles the cause of Great Britain, notwithstanding the many and grave abuses which have been practiced or tolerated by the East India Company, is nevertheless the cause of humanity and Christian civilization. It is this fact, no doubt, which has awakened no small share of the fierce invectives against the proceedings of the English in India. For a long time that region has been the field of an extensive and successful missionary enterprise, to which the British rulers have extended, at least, a protection from Hindoo and Moslem violence, and so afforded an opportunity for the free exercise of Christian philanthropy. This is, doubtless, the head and front of their offending in the minds of many of those who are loudest in their outcries against British cruelty and reckless ambition. We are very far from approving all that has been done by British agents in India, but we are equally clearly convinced that it is much more for their good deeds than their faults that they are most intensely disliked.”

Any man who has resided in India, and known the condition of the people and the actions of that Government in regard to them, and the encouragement extended to efforts for the welfare of the natives, especially of late years, will be prepared to accept these words as a fair, and yet generous, statement of the situation. The position of England in India was a very peculiar one, and, in all candor, should be clearly understood before forming an opinion upon the merits of the case. For instance, in India there is no such thing as patriotism, no capability of self-government. If the English rule were withdrawn to-morrow, the last thing the natives would think of would be to unite and form a general Government. Each Rajah and Nawab would simply set up for himself, hold all he had, and take all he was able to seize. Then would begin a renewal of those religious and national contentions which form such a sad part of India's history, and the bloody exercise of which Britain terminated when she took control of the country, ever since holding the peace between those hostile elements.

The natives, especially the more military races, caring little for love of country, are willing to fight for compensation, and to serve any master; so they were found very ready to wear the livery of England, to bear her weapons, and receive her pay. These men were called “Sepoys,” (the Hindustanee for soldier,) each regiment being officered by English gentlemen. By degrees this force rose up to be an immense power, so that in 1856, there were two hundred thousand of them, constituting the regular Sepoy army, besides as many more called “Contingents,” maintained by native courts under treaty, having English officers in command. Then there were the armed police; making altogether a force of about four hundred thousand trained men, with the best weapons of England in their hands.

The total of British troops in all India in 1856 was not much over forty thousand, and they were scattered on the frontier and in a few of the leading cities, seldom more than one regiment in a place, and sometimes only half a regiment.

By degrees the Sepoy army, especially that of Bengal, became what might be called “a close service,” a high caste Brahminical force, to whose notions constant concessions were made by the Government. They were a fine body of men, invincible to any thing in the East so long as they were led by their English officers, these officers and their ladies and children being afterward the first victims of the Rebellion. The Sepoys were utterly uneducated, as superstitious as they were ignorant, and entirely under the control of their Fakirs and Priests. This weak-minded and fanatical body of men had won for England her Oriental empire, and she chiefly relied on them for its defense and preservation. She could well do so, as long as they were faithful to her rule, but not a day longer. By degrees her policy changed, and, instead of maintaining a mixed army of all castes and creeds and nationalities, the “Bengal Army,” as it was called, grew more and more Brahminical, united, and fanatical.

It has been asked, Why did not England let India go when she threw off her allegiance, and free herself from the care and risk of governing a people who thus disdained her rule? Two answers may be given to this question. One would be the secular reason of men who valued India for what she was to England in the way of profit and power. Millions of British money were invested in the funds and reproductive works of India; then, there was the vast, increasing, and lucrative market for English goods, one item alone of which will express its importance. The clothing of the Hindoo is not very voluminous, yet, what a business was it for Lancashire to have the right to supply cotton cloth for one sixth of the human family! But, besides the merchant and the manufacturer, the politician, the military and the educated man had a deep interest in the retention of this “brightest jewel of the British crown,” for here was furnished the most splendid patronage that ever lay in the gift of a statesman. Hundreds of the cultured classes of England had careers of position and emolument as civil servants of the Government, under “covenants” that secured them munificent compensation, and which enabled them, when their legal term of service expired, to retire on pensions equal to about one half their splendid pay; so that Montgomery Martin estimates that the money remittances to Great Britain from India averaged five million sterling ($25,000,000) per annum for the past sixty years. Landed property in England has been largely enhanced in value by the investments of fortunes, the fruit of civil, military, and commercial success in Hindustan. A nation controlling the resources of such a dependency, with such a noble field in which to elicit and educate the genius of its youth and display the ability of its commanders, with the profitable employment of its mercantile shipping in the boundless imports and exports of such a country as India, could not lightly resign, or throw it away without a mighty struggle for its retention.

But, the man who would present no further reasons than these for British resolution to keep India in its control, would do injustice to the better section of English society, and to many of her noble representatives in the East. There is another and a better reason than what was measured by the pounds, shillings, and pence of mere worldly men, underlying the determination of England in this matter. The Christians of Britain hold firmly that, the Ruler of heaven and earth, in so wonderfully subjecting that great people to their rule, has done so for a higher than secular purpose; that he has given them a moral and evangelical mission to fulfill in that land for him; and that it is their high and solemn duty to maintain that responsibility until, by education and Christianity, they shall attach those millions by the tie of a common creed to the English throne, or fit them for assuming for themselves the responsibilities of self-government. For such men Montgomery Martin (one of their most voluminous Oriental writers) speaks when, in his last edition of his “Indian Empire,” (4 vols, octavo,) dedicated by permission to the British Queen, he so distinctly declares to his Government and countrymen their high accountability before God and man in this respect, when he asks, “On what principle is the future government of India to be based? Are we simply to do what is right, or what seems expedient? If the former, we may confidently ask the Divine blessing on our efforts for the moral and material welfare of the people of India, and we may strive, by a steady course of kind and righteous dealing, to win their alienated affections for ourselves as individuals, and their respect and interest for the religion which inculcates justice, mercy, and humility as equally indispensable to national as to individual Christianity.”

Those who know India best, know that I speak the truth when I assert, that these words are represented by deeds as honorable in the lives, and devotion to India's welfare, of many of the men who represent Great Britain there. I do not know a community of public men where you can find a greater number of “the excellent of the earth,” than among the civil and military officers of England in India; men who have stood up for Jesus and for humanity, loving the poor, degraded race whom they ruled, and pleading, coiling, and giving munificently for their elevation to a better condition. Such names as Bentinck, Lawrence, Herbert Edwards, Havelock, Muir, Tucker, Ramsay, Gowan, Durand, and scores of others, amply justify this statement. The Annual Missionary Reports of the Methodist Episcopal Church (and this is equally true of the other missions as well) bear witness to this fact for many years past. During that time, such was the sympathy for the work which we attempted, in helping them to educate and enlighten the people of our own mission field, that noble-hearted Englishmen in all stations of life, from the Governor-General down to the private soldier, have aided us as freely as though we were of their own nation or Church, so that their contributions since 1857 will be found to aggregate over $150,000 in gold to our mission alone; while this assistance is all the time increasing, and is also equally extended by these good men to the missions of any Church or nation which goes there, and whose labors are aiming to elevate the benighted natives, and prepare them by education and a public conscience for self-government.

The Hindoo Chronology and division of time are very singular, and even whimsical. They hold to four great Ages of the world, called Yugs. Each of these Yugs is inferior to its immemediate predecessor in power, virtue, and happiness. These divisions are denominated the Satya, the Treta, the Dwarper, and the Kali Yugs, whose united length amounts to the prodigious sum of 4,320,000 years; yet this sum of the Ages is but a Kalpa, or one “Day of Brahma,” at the end of which this sleepy deity wakes up to find the universe destroyed, and which he has then to create anew for another “Day” ere he goes to sleep again.

The Satya Yug, they tell us, lasted 1,728,000 years, and was the Age of Truth—the Golden Age—during which the whole race was virtuous, and lived each of them 100,000 years, and men attained the stature of “21 cubits” (37 feet) in height!

The Treta Yug lasted 1,296,000 years; this was the Silver Age, (using the same figures as the Greek and Roman poets,) during which one third of the race became corrupt, the human stature was lowered, and its life shortened to 10,000 years.

The Dwarper Yug extended to only 864,000 years—their Brazen Age—when fully one half of the race degenerated, and their height was again reduced, and their lives shortened to 1,000 years each.

The Kali Yug is the one in which we now live, and is regarded by them as the last—the Iron Age—in which mankind has become totally depraved, and their stature further reduced, and their life limited to 100 years. This Yug, according to them, began 4,950 years ago, and is to last exactly 427,050 years longer, which will close this Kalpa, or “Day of Brahma.”

They assert that one patriarch called Satyavrata, or Vaivaswata, had an existence running the whole period of the Satya Yug, (1,728,000 years!) and that he escaped with his family from a universal deluge, which destroyed the rest of mankind. He is regarded by Indian archaeologists as the same person as the Seventh Menu, and by Colonel Tod, in his “Annals of Rajasthan,” as designating the patriarch of mankind, Noah.

The “Night of Brahma” is held to be of equal length with his “Day,” and that in the life of Brahma there are 36,000 such nights and days. At the end of each “Day” there is a partial destruction of the universe, and a reconstruction of it at the close of each “Night.” During that long night, “sun, moon, and stars are shrouded in gloom; ceaseless torrents of rain pour down; the waves of the ocean, agitated with mighty tempests, rise to a prodigious height—the seven lower worlds, as well as this earth, are all submerged. In the midst of this darkness and ruin, and in the center of this tremendous abyss, Brahma reposes in mysterious slumber upon the serpent Ananta, or eternity. Meanwhile the wicked inhabitants of all worlds utterly perish. At length the long night ends, Brahma awakes, the darkness is instantly dispelled, and the universe returns to its pristine order and beauty.”

This amazing chronology further states, that when these 36,000 “days” and “nights” (each of them 4,320,000 solar years in duration) have run their course, Brahma himself shall then expire, amid the utter annihilation of the universe, or its absorption into the essence of Brahm. This they call a Maha Pralaya, or great destruction. After this, Brahm, (the original spirit,) who had reposed during the whole duration of the creation's existence, awakes again, and from him another manifestation of the universe takes place, all things being reproduced as before, and Brahma, the Creator, commences a new existence. Each creation is coextensive with the life of Brahma, and lasts over three hundred billions of years, (311,040,000,000 years,) and the people of India believe that thus it has been during the past eternity, and thus it will continue to be in the eternity to come, an alternating succession of manifestations and annihilations of the universe at regular intervals of this inconceivable length. Truly does Wheeler call this daring reckoning “a bold attempt of the Brahmins to map out eternity!”

Trevor has remarked that the present age (the Kali Yug) being 432,000 years, the other three Yugs are found simply by multiplying that number by 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The number itself is the tithe of the sum total of the four Yugs. The “divine year,” being computed like the prophetic, at a year for a day, (counting 360 days to the year,) is equal to 360 ordinary years; and these, multiplied by the perfect number 12,000, makes 4,320,000 years, the sum of the Ages, and a Kalpa, or “Day of Brahma.”

Trevor supposes, that as this chronologic scheme is too absurd for reception, it must have been originally designed as a sort of arithmetical allegory, expressing the character, rather than the duration, of the periods referred to; while the descending ratios of 100,000, 10,000, 1,000, and 100 may indicate only the gradual shortening of the term of human life since the creation of man, as the corresponding proportions of the virtuous and vicious denote the spread of moral evil, till in the present age “they are altogether become filthy.” This theory I leave to the learned reader, having introduced the topic chiefly to illustrate the mental characteristics of the people of India, and to show into what vagaries the human intellect, albeit cultivated and subtile, can be drawn in the day-dreams of a people on whom the light of Revelation never dawned. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

Their divisions of time are singular: 18 Mimeshas (twinkling of an eye, the standard of measure) are equal to 1 Kashta; 30 Kashtas to 1 Kala; 30 Kalas (48 of our minutes) to 1 Muhurtta; 30 Muhurttas to 1 day and night; 1 Month of Men to 1 day and night of the Pitris, (ancestors;) 1 Year of Men to 1 day and night of the Gods. The Hindoos have four watches of the day, and the same at night; these are called Pahars, and are three hours long, the first commencing at six o'clock in the morning. The day and night together are also divided into sixty smaller portions, called Ghurees, so that each of the eight Pahars consists of seven and a half Ghurees. They have twelve months in the year, each month having thirty days. Half the month, when the moon shines, is called Oojeeala-pakh, and the other half, which is dark, they call Andhera-pakh, and these distinctions they recognize in writing and dating their letters. They reckon their era from the reign of Bikurmaditt, one of their greatest and best kings, the present year of their era being 1934. The Mohammedans date their era from the Hejira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca, which took place in A. D. 622; this is therefore their 1249th year.

I saw a very primitive method of measuring time, or ascertaining the “ghuree,” in India. It was a small brass cup, with a hole in the bottom, immersed in a pan of water, and watched by a servant. When the cup sinks from the quantity of water its perforation has admitted the ghuree is completed, and the cup is again placed empty on the top of the water to measure the succeeding ghuree. Great attention is, of course, required to preserve any moderate degree of correctness by this imperfect mode of marking the progress of the day and night, and establishments are purposely entertained for it when considered as a necessary appendage of rank. In most other cases, the superior convenience and certainty of our clocks and watches are making considerable strides in superseding the Hindustanee ghuree.

A brief glimpse at the wonderful Mythology, Geography, and Astronomy of these people will be expected here, as also some notice of their venerable Vedas and their voluminous literature. Their “Sacred Books” gravely teach as follows:

“The worlds above this earth are peopled with gods and goddesses, demi-gods and genii—the sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters, of Brahma and other superior deities. All the superior gods have separate heavens for themselves. The inferior deities dwell chiefly in the heaven of Indra, the god of the firmament. There they congregate to the number of three hundred and thirty millions. The gods are divided and subdivided into classes or hierarchies, which vary through every conceivable gradation of rank and power. They are of all colors: some black, some white, some red, some blue, and so through all the blending shades of the rainbow. They exhibit all sorts of shape, size, and figure: in forms wholly human or half human, wholly brutal or variously compounded, like many-headed and many-bodied centaurs, with four, or ten, or a hundred or a thousand eyes, heads, and arms. They ride through the regions of space on all sorts of etherealized animals: elephants, buffaloes, lions, deer, sheep, goats, peacocks, vultures, geese, serpents, and rats! They hold forth in their multitudinous arms all manner of offensive and defensive weapons: thunderbolts, scimetars, javelins, spears, clubs, bows, arrows, shields, flags, and shells! They discharge all possible functions. There are gods of the heavens above, and of the earth below, and of the regions under the earth; gods of wisdom and of folly; gods of war and of peace; gods of good and of evil; gods of pleasure, who delight to shed around their votaries the fragrance of harmony and joy; gods of cruelty and wrath, whose thirst must be satiated with torrents of blood, and whose ears must be regaled with the shrieks and agonies of expiring victims. All the virtues and the vices of man, all the allotments of life—beauty, jollity, and sport, the hopes and fears of youth, the felicities and infelicities of manhood, the joys and sorrows of old age—all, all are placed under the presiding influence of superior powers.”—Duff's India.