Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/249

Rh waters by meditation, and having placed in them a pro ductive seed which developed into a golden egg, he was born in that egg as the male Brahma, the forefather (and creator) of all beings. The theory of Brahma being born from a golden egg is a mere adaptation of the Vedic con ception of JliranyagarWia (&quot;gold-embryo&quot;), who is repre sented as the supreme god in a hymn of the tenth book of the Rigveda. However the new dogma may have answered the pur poses of speculative minds, it was not one in which the people generally were likely to have been much con cerned ; an abstract, colourless deity like Brahma, could awake no sympathies in the hearts of those accustomed to worship gods of flesh and blood. Indeed, ever since the primitive symbolical worship of nature had un dergone a process of disintegration under the influence of metaphysical speculation, the real belief of the great body of the people had probably become more and more distinct from that of the priesthood. In different localities the principal share of their affection may have been bestowed on one or another of the old gods who was thereby raised to the dignity of chief deity ; or new forms and objects of belief may have sprung up with the intellectual growth of the people. In some cases even the worship of the indigenous population may not have remained without exercising some influence in modifying the belief of the Aryan race. In this way a number of local deities would grow up, more or less distinct in name and characteristics from the gods of the Vedic pantheon. There is, indeed, sufficient evidence to show that, at a time when, after centuries of theological speculations, some little insight into the life and thought of the people is afforded by the literature handed down to us, such a diversity of worship did exist. Under these circumstances the policy which seems to have suggested itself to the priesthood, anxious to retain a firm hold on the minds of the people, was to recognize and incorporate into their system some of the most prominent objects of popular devotion, and thereby to establish a kind of catholic creed for the whole community subject to the Brahmanical law. At the time of the original composition of the great epics two such deities, Siva or Mahddeva (&quot; the great god &quot;) and Vishnu, seem to have been already admitted into the Brahmanical system, where they have ever since retained their place ; and from the manner in which they are represented in those works, it would, indeed, appear that both, and especially the former, enjoyed an extensive worship. As several synonyms are attributed to each of them, it is not improbable that in some of these we have to recognize special names under which the people in different localities worshipped these gods, or deities of a similar nature which, by the agency of popular poetry, or in some other way, came to be combined with them. The places assigned to them in the pantheistic system were co-ordinate with that of Brahma; the three deities, Jlmhmd, Vishnu, and &iva were to represent a triple im personation of the divinity, as manifesting itself respec tively in the creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe. Siva does not occur in the Vedic hymns as the name of a god, but only as an adjective in the sense of &quot; kind, auspicious.&quot; One of his synonyms, however, is the name of a Vedic deity, the attributes and nature of which show a good deal of similarity to the post- Vedic god. This is liudra, the god of the roaring storm, usually portrayed, in accordance with the element he represents, as a fierce, destructive deity, &quot;terrible as a wild beast,&quot; whose fearful arrows cause death and disease to men and cattle. He is also called Jcapardin (&quot; wearing his hair spirally braided like a shell &quot;), a word which in later times became one of the synonyms of Siva. The Atharvaveda mentions several other names of the same god, some of which appear even placed together, as in one passage Bhava, Sarva, liudra, and Fafrqmti. Possibly some of them were the names under which one and the same deity was already worshipped in different parts of Northern India. This was certainly the case in later times, since it is expressly stated in one of the later works of the Brahmana period, that Sarva was used by the Eastern people and Bhava by a Western tribe. It is also worthy of note that in this work (the Satapatha-lrdhmanci), composed at a time when the Vedic triad of Agni, Indra-Vayu, and Siirya was still recognized, attempts are made to identify this god of many names with Agni ; and that in one passage in the MahdlJtd- rata it is stated that the Brahmans said that Agni was Siva. Although this identification can scarcely be correct, it seems to point to the fact that, in adapting their specula tions to the actual state of popular worship, the Brahmans kept the older triad distinctly in view, and by means of it endeavoured to bring their new structure into harmony with the ancient Vedic belief. It is in his character as destroyer that Siva holds his place in the triad, and that he must, no doubt, be identified with the Vedic Rudra. Another very important function appears, however, to have been early assigned to him, on which much more stress is laid in his modern worship that of destroyer being more especially exhibited in his consort viz., the character of a generative power, symbolized in the phallic emblem (linycC) and in the sacred bull (Nandi), the favourite attendant of the god. This feature being entirely alien from the nature of the Vedic god, it has been conjectured with some plausi bility, that the /m^ra-worship was originally prevalent among the non- Aryan population, and was thence introduced into the worship of $iva. On the other hand, there can, we think, be little doubt that Siva, in his generative faculty, is the representative of another Vedic god whose nature and attributes go far to account for this particular feature of the modern deity, viz., Pushan. This god, originally, no doubt, a solar deity, is frequently invoked, as the lord of nourishment, to bestow food, wealth, and other blessings. He is once, jointly with Soma, called the progenitor of heaven and earth, and is connected with the marriage ceremony, where he is asked to lead the bride to the bride groom and make her prosperous (Sivatamd). Moreover, ho has the epithet kapardin (spirally braided), as have Rudra and the later Siva, and is called Pasiipa, or guardian of cattle, whence the latter derives his name Pasvpati. But he is also a strong, powerful, and even fierce and destructive god, who, with his goad or golden spear, smites the foes of his worshipper, and thus in this respect offers at least some points of similarity to Rudra, which may have favoured the fusion of the two gods. Vishnu occupies already a place in the Vedic mythology, though by no means one of such prominence as would entitle him to that degree of exaltation implied in his character as one of the three hypostases of the divinity. Moreover, although in his general nature, as a benevolent, genial being, the Vedic god corresponds on the whole to the later Vishnu, the preserver of the world, the latter exhibits many important features for which we look in vain in .his pro totype, and which were most likely the results of sectarian worship or of an amalgamation with local deities. In one or two of them, such as his names Vasudeva and Vaikuntha, an attempt may again be traced to identify Vishnu with Indra, who, as we have seen, was one of the Vedic triad of gods. The characteristic feature of the elder Vishnu is his measuring the world with his three strides, which are ex plained as denoting either the three stations of the sun at the time of rising, culminating, and setting, or the triple manifestation of the luminous element, as the fire on earth, the lightning in the atmosphere, and the sun in the 