the beginning written or recited, the predicate of singing would never have been ascribed to them; nor would it ever have become customary to employ the name of the Muse as a die to be stamped on licensed fiction, unless the practice had begun when her agency was invoked and hailed in perfect good faith. Belief, the fruit of deliberate inquiry, and a rational scrutiny of evidence, is in such an age unknown; the simple faith of the time slides in unconsciously, when the imagination and feeling are exalted; and inspired authority is at once understood, easily admitted, and implicitly confided in." If we extend our researches over the pages of Homer, we shall speedily discover numerous other instances of a belief in divine interference in human affairs, not merely (1) in the general government of the world, in the distribution of good and evil, and the allotment of the diversified gifts, intellectual, moral, and physical, which constitute the innumerable varieties of human condition, but also (2) in the way of special suggestion, guidance, encouragement, and protection, afforded to individuals. Illustrations of the general control exercised by the gods over the fortunes of mankind may be found in the following passages of the Iliad,—xiii. 730 ff., and of the Odyssey,-i. 347 f.; iv. 236 f.; vi. 188 f.; viii. 167-175; xvii. 218, 485 ff. The following are illustrations of the special interference of the gods on behalf of their favourites: Iliad, i. 194 ff., 218; iii. 380 ff.; v. 1 ff.; vii. 272; xiii. 60 f., 435; xvi. 788 ff. :-Odyssey, i. 319 ff.; iii. 26 ff.; xiv. 216 f., 227; xvi. 159 ff. Of the latter class of passages, I quote two specimens. Odyssey, i. 319 ff. : Ἡ μὲν ἄρ ὡς εἰποῦσ ̓ ἀπέβη γλαυκῶπις Αθήνη, "As thus she spake, Athene flew Aloft, and soared beyond his view. His soul she filled with force and fire, And stronger memory of his sire. Amazed, he felt the inward force, And deemed a god must be its source." 33 Compare Prof. Blackie's dissertation on the theology of Homer in the "Classical Museum," When Telemachus urges his youth and inexperience as a reason for diffidence in approaching Nestor, Minerva says to him (Odyssey, iii. 26): Τηλέμαχ', ἄλλα μὲν ἀντὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇσι νοήσεις, Αλλα δὲ καὶ δαίμων ὑποθήσεται· ου γὰρ οίω Ου σε θεῶν ἀέκητι γενέσθαι τε τραφέμεν τε. "Some things thy mind itself shall reach, And other things a god shall teach; For born and bred thou ne'er hadst been These passages, however, afford only one exemplification of the idea which runs through, and in fact created, the entire mythology of the Greeks, viz. that all the departments of life and of nature were animated, controlled, and governed by particular deities, by whom they were represented, and in whom they were personified. The Indian mythology,—as is evident to every reader of the Vedas, as well as (to some extent) to the student of the Purāņas,—is distinguished by the same tendency as the Grecian. Indra, Agni, Vayu, Savitri, Surya, and many other gods are nothing else than personifications of the elements, while Vach or Sarasvati and some other deities, represent either the divine reason by which the more gifted men were supposed to be inspired, or some mental function, or ceremonial abstraction. 31 In the later religious history, however, of the two races, the Hellenic and the Indian, there is in one respect a remarkable divergence. Though the priestesses of the different oracles, and perhaps some other pretenders to prophetical intuition, were popularly regarded as speaking under a divine impulse, the idea of inspiration as áttaching to poems or other compositions of a religious, didactic, or philosophical character, very soon became extinct. The Greeks had no sacred Scriptures. Although a supernatural character was popularly ascribed to Pythagoras, Epimenides, and Empedocles, the Hellenic philosophers in general spoke and wrote in dependance on their own reason alone. They rarely professed to be guided by any supernatural assistance, or claimed any divine authority for their dogmas.35 Nor (unless such 34 See Nägelsbach's Nachhomerische Theologie, pp. 173 ff., and Dr. Karl Köhler's Prophetismus der Hebræer und die Mantik der Griechen in ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältniss, (Darmstadt, 1860), pp. 39 ff. 35 I express myself cautiously here, as a learned friend profoundly versed in the study of Plato is of opinion that there are traces in the writings of that author of a may have been the case at a very late period) was any infallibility claimed for any of them by their successors. In India, on the other hand, the indistinct, and perhaps hesitating, belief which some of the ancient rishis seem to have entertained in their own inspiration was not suffered to die out in the minds of later generations. On the contrary this belief grew up (as we have seen above, pp. 57-138, and 207 ff.) by degrees into a fixed persuasion that all the literary productions of those early sages had not only resulted from a supernatural impulse, but were infallible, divine, and even eternal. These works have become the sacred Scriptures of India. And in the popular opinion, if not in the estimation of the learned, most Indian works of any importance, of a religious, scientific, or philosophical kind, which were produced at a later period, have come to be regarded as inspired, as soon as the lapse of ages had removed the writers beyond familiar or traditional knowledge, and invested their names with a halo of reverence. To return from this digression to the inquiry which was being pursued regarding the opinions of the ancient Vedic rishis on the subject of their own inspiration: How, it will be asked, are we to reconcile this impression which the rishis manifest of being prompted by supernatural aid, with the circumstance, which seems to be no less distinctly proved by the citations made in the preceding section (pp. 232 ff.), that they frequently speak of themselves as having made, fabricated, or generated the hymns, without apparently betraying any consciousness that in this process they were inspired or guided by any extraneous assistance? In reply to this I will only suggest (1) that possibly the idea of inspiration may not have been held by the earliest rishis, but may have grown up among their successors; or (2) that it may have been entertained by some rishis, and not by others; or again (3), if both ideas claim to supernatural guidance, though by no means to infallibility. See also the mention made of the inspiration ascribed to Pythagoras, in Mr. Grote's Greece, iv. 528, 530; and the notices of Epimenides and Empedocles given by the same author, vol. iii. 112 ff., vol. vii. p. 174, and vol. viii. 465 f.; and compare on the same subjects Bp. Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, ii. 32 ff., and 155 ff.; and Plato, Legg. i. p. 642. See also Prof. Geddes's Phædo, note P. p. 251, and the passages there referred to; and the Tract of Dr. Köhler, above cited, pp. 60 and 64. can be traced to the same author, we may suppose that the one notion was uppermost in his mind at one moment, and the other at another; or (4) that he had no very clearly defined ideas of inspiration, and might conceive that the divine assistance of which he was conscious, or which at least he implored, did not render his hymn the less truly the production of his own mind; that, in short, the existence of a human, was not incompatible with that of a superhuman, element in its composition. The first of these suppositions is, however, attended with this difficulty, that both conceptions, viz., that of independent unassisted composition, and that of inspiration, appear to be discoverable in all parts of the Rig-veda. As regards the second supposition, it might not be easy (in the uncertainty attaching to the Vedic tradition contained in the Anukramaṇī or Vedic index) to show that such and such hymns were written by such and such rishis, rather than by any others. It may, however, become possible by continued and careful comparison of the Vedic hymns, to arrive at some probable conclusions in regard to their authorship, so far at least as to determine that particular hymns should probably be assigned to particular eras, or families, rather than to others. I must, however, leave such investigations to be worked out, and the results applied to the present subject, by more competent scholars than myself. III. While in many passages of the Veda, an efficacy is ascribed to the hymns, which is perhaps nothing greater than natural religion teaches all men to attribute to their devotions, in other texts a mystical, magical, or supernatural power is represented as residing in the prayers and metres. (See Weber's Vājasaneyi-Sanhitæ specimen, p. 61; and Vol. I. of this work,. p. 242.) Some of the following texts are of the latter kind. Thus in R.V. i. 67, 3, it is said: Ajo na kshām dadhāra pṛithivīm tastambha dyām mantrebhiḥ satyaiḥ | "(Agni) who like the unborn, supported the broad earth, and upheld the sky by true prayers." The following is part of Sayana's annotation on this verse: Mantrair divo dhāranam Taittirīye samāmnātam |"devāḥ vai ādityasya svarga-lokasya parācho 'tipātād abibhayuḥ | tam chhandobhir adṛihan dhṛityā" iti | yadvā satyair mantraiḥ stūyamāno 'gnir dyām tastambha iti | "The supporting of the sky by mantras is thus recorded in the Taittirīya: The gods feared lest the sun should fall down from the heaven; they propped it up by metres.' Or the verse may mean that Agni, being lauded by true mantras, upheld the sky." See also R.V. i. 96, 2, quoted above, in p. 225, and Ait. Br. ii. 33, cited in the First Volume of this work, p. 180. i. 164, 25. Jagata sindhum divi astabhayad rathantare suryam pari apasyat | gayatrasya samidhas tisraḥ āhus tato mahnā pra ririche mahitvā | "By the Jagati metre he fixed the waters in the sky; he beheld the sun in the Rathantara (a portion of the Sama-veda): there are said to be three divisions of the Gayatra; hence it surpasses [all others] in power and grandeur." iii. 53, 12. Viśvāmitrasya rakshati brahma idam Bhāratam janam | "The prayer of Visvamitra protects this tribe of the Bharatas." (See Vol. I. pp. 242 and 342.) v. 31, 4. Brahmanaḥ Indram mahayanto arkair avardhayan Ahaye hantavai u "The priests magnifying Indra by their praises, have fortified him for slaying Agni." Compare the following texts already quoted, iii. 32, 13, p. 226; vi. 44, 13, p. 227; viii. 6, 11, p. 228; viii. 8, 8, p. 243; viii. 44, 12, p. 230; viii. 63, 8, p. 230; x. 67, 13, p. 244; and also i. 10, 5; ii. 11, 2; ii. 12, 14; iii. 34, 1, 2; v. 31, 10; viii. 6, 1, 21, 31, 35; viii. 13, 16; viii. 14, 5, 11; viii. 82, 27; and viii. 87, 8, where a similar power of augmenting, or strengthening, the gods is attributed to the hymns. .... v. 40, 6..... Gūṛham sūryam tamasā apavratena turiyena brahmanā avindad Atriḥ| 8. . . . . Atriḥ sūryasya divi chakshur ādhāt svarbhānor apa māyāḥ aghukshat | 9. Yam vai sūryam̃ svarbhānus tamasā avidhyad ūsurah | Atrayas tam anvavindan na hi anye aśaknuvan | Atri, by his fourth prayer, discovered the sun which had been concealed by the hostile darkness. 8. . . . . Atri placed the eye of the sun in the sky, and dispelled the illusions of Svarbhānu. 9. The Atris discovered the sun, which Svarbhānu, of the Asura race, had pierced with darkness; no other could [effect this]." (See Vol. I. of this work, pp. 242 and 469.) |