Page:Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit, being the Hitopadesa.djvu/10

 praise, expresses the relations between man and God. The second, called Yajur, from a word meaning worship, contains instructions upon ceremonial. The third, called Sama, from a word signifying a prayer arranged for singing, contains pieces arranged as chants. Atharva, the fourth Veda, less ancient than the rest, contains forms of imprecation, prayers, hymns, and fifty-two theological treatises called Upanishads. Atharvan is referred to in it as a king appointed by Brahma to protect inferior beings. There are also detached Upanishads which are regarded as of less authority than the fifty-two contained in the AtharvaVeda. The Upanishads, or argumentative parts of the Vedas, are regarded as forming the Jnána, or philosophical part of the sacred books, and theological argument is based on these; the parts devoted to pure teaching of the religious system, its customs, sacrifices, ceremonies, form the Brahmanas; and the prayers and hymns in each Veda constitute its Sanhita. Thus, with regard to this matter the Vedas are said to contain Brahmanas, Jnána and Sanhita. The Brahmanas recognize a three fold Veda, not reckoning the fourth, and derive the third from the first, the Rig-Veda, which teaches that there is one only supreme God, a pure spirit dwelling in eternal rest and silence, who is All, and in All. He is the supreme Brahma, who created the world by three manifestations drawn from himself, and named Brahmá, Vishnu. Siva, originally united in one essence, so that "the great One" became known as one Person and three gods. Brahmá represents Creation. Vishnu Preservation, and Siva Destruction. Of Vishnu, the Preserver, there have been nine Avatars or Incarnations, the first six were in the golden age of the world, the seventh was as Rama, the eighth as Krishna, the ninth as Buddha. The tenth, in which he will appear as a white horse, is yet awaited. In his last Avatar, as Buddha, Vishnu promoted scepticism to the end that the giants, wanting faith, might cease to obtain by prayer the powers that they misapplied.

The time during which the Vedas were produced extended over centuries, with periodic changes of style, and has been divided into four periods, the last of which, from 600 to 200 B.C., was the period of Sutra literature. Sutra means a string, and stands for a literature of short sayings strung to gether, by teachers who studied brevity, and of whom it was said, in their own proverbial way, that an author rejoiceth in the economizing of half a short vowel as much as in the birth of a son.

There were drawn from the four Vedas four Upa-Vedas. One was on Medicine from the Rig-Veda; one on Music from the Sama-Veda; one on Arms and Implements of War, from the Yajur-Veda; and one on sixty-four Mechanical Arts, from the Atharva-Veda. The Upa-Vedas are now lost.