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are collections of rules which deal with (1) domestic rites and family duties, and (2) conventional usages and every-day practices.

Sir Monier Monier-Williams has remarked that the Hindu race affords perhaps the only example of a nation who, although apparently quite indifferent to the registering of any of the great facts of their political life, or even to the recording of any of the most remarkable events of their history, nevertheless, at a very early period, regulated their domestic rites and customs according to definite, prescribed rules, which were not only written down, but preserved with religious care, and are, many of them, still in force. Hence the important branch of post-Vedic literature just mentioned; that of Smarta-sutras relating to, first, domestic rites; and second, conventional everyday practices.

Those relating to domestic matters are called the Grihya-sutras. They are probably as old as the sixth century B.C. Their fifth chapter describes the due selection. of a wife. "A man," it says, "ought to marry a woman who is possessed of intelligence, beauty, good character, and auspicious marks, and who is free from disease." No less than eight forms of marriage ceremony are specified and described. Particulars are given in regard to the duties following marriage, the ceremonies connected with the birth and treatment of children, including the very important ceremony of investiture with the sacred thread, which was supposed to confer a second spiritual birth, and rules for the guidance of the young Brahman as a student of the Veda. Other directions relate to fixing of the site of a dwelling, laying the foundation of a house, making a solemn entrance to the new house.

One important chapter prescribes the five sacraments, or devotional acts, which every twice-born man was required to perform every day. These were acts of homage directed to (1) deities; (2) all beings; (3) departed ancestors; (4) the Rishis, or authors of the Vedic hymns; (5) men. To the gods was offered an oblation on the domestic fire; to animals and all creatures an offering was made; to the spirits of the departed water was poured out; the Rishis were honored by repeating passages of the Veda; honor to men was expressed by hospitality and

gifts. Chapters are devoted to directing how the twice-born man shall conduct his private devotions. The conclusion of these consisted in repeating from memory portions of sacred scriptures, the list of which extends from the four Vedic hymn and service-books through the development of Vedic literature, which included both Sruti and Smriti.

Funeral-Rites

Widow-Burning

A most interesting part of the prescriptions in regard to domestic ceremonies relates to the funeral-rites to be performed at the burning of dead bodies; and a very significant part is that relating to the fate of the widow, which eventually became, but was not at the beginning, that of sacrifice with the body of her husband on the burning pile. The original directions, which show that nothing of the kind was at first contemplated, may be seen from the following passage, which follows that describing the preparation of the funeralpile for the cremation of the husband:

Rise

"North of the body his wife is to be made to lie down. Then either her husband's brother, who is in the place of husband to her, or a pupil, or an old servant, causing her to rise up, repeating the words of Rig-veda X. 18. 8: up, O woman, come back to the world of life; thou art lying by a dead man; come back. Thou hast sufficiently fulfilled the duties of a wife and mother to the husband who wooed thee, and took thee by the hand.'

After thus taking the wife from the funeral-pile of her husband, and some other ceremonies, the cremation proceeded, while portions of hymns of the Rig-veda were repeated.

The entire absence of the practice of widow-burning from early Vedic religion is shown by the fact that Manu, the greatest of the Hindu law-givers, speaking not less than 500 years B. C., nowhere alludes to the custom of the selfsacrifice of the wife on her husband's funeral-pile. This custom appears to have originated something more than 300 years before Christ, in part, at least, by wives preferring not to be taken from the funeral-pile, as the earlier law required. The idea of such a sacrifice is very widely found at the lowest level of primitive culture. It is supposed to have been brought in among the Hindus from the Scythians. The wife who submitted

to remain on the pile was called Sati, meaning "devoted wife." It was for a long time supposed by the British authorities that Sati was so deeply rooted in Hindu religious belief that it should not be prohibited; widows, that is, were to be permitted to devote themselves, the authorities only taking care that such funeral-suicide should be the full and free choice of the victim. With that halfsanction of British rule, there perished in a single year not less than 800. It was, however, ascertained that neither the Veda nor Manu, the Hindu Moses, directed or even hinted at the cremation of the living wife, and that the Vedic text appealed to in support of the practice had had the word agre altered to agneh, so that where it had read, "let the wives go up to the altar first," it was made to read, "let the wives go up to the altar-fire ;" and on this fraud had hung the sacrifice of innumerable lives during more than twenty-one centuries. In 1829 Lord Wm. Bentinck promulgated a law which suppressed the practice with entire success and without any difficulty.

One of the hymns of the oldest Veda, the eighteenth hymn of the tenth book. of the Rig-veda, was the traditional hymn for use in connection with funeral-rites. It implied much greater simplicity in these rites than in the rites of later times, when priests had added burdensome observances. There was, however, no less solemnity in the conduct of the last rites, no less exhibition of grief for the dead, no less affectionate respect for his memory; a feeling cherished religiously in India far more than in Europe. The hymn also implies belief in the soul's eternal existence, and the permanence of its personality hereafter. At the date of the hymn the body was not burned, but buried, and there was not the slightest allusion to the later practice of the widow sacrificing herself on the funeral-pile of her husband.

In this earliest ceremonial, having reached the side of the grave, the widow seated herself near the body of her husband while the children, relatives and friends ranged themselves in a circle around her. The priest, standing near an altar on which the sacred fire was kindled, invoked Death; called upon him to withdraw from the path of the living, and not to molest the young and healthy survivors, who were assembled to per

form pious rites for the dead without giving up the expectation of a long life themselves. The priest then placed a stone between the dead body and the living relations to mark off the boundary line of Death's domain. Having done this, he offered up a prayer that none of those present might be removed to another world before attaining old age; that no one of the younger might be taken before the elder. Then the widow's married female friends came to the altar and offered oblations in the fire. Following this the widow herself withdrew from the inner circle assigned to the dead and joined the survivors outside the boundary line, while the official priest took the bow out of the hand of the deceased in order to show that the manly strength which he possessed during life did not perish with him, but remained with his family. The body was then tenderly laid in the grave with repetition of the words of the following hymn:

Open thy arms, O Earth, receive the dead
With gentle pressure and with loving welcome.
Enshroud him tenderly, e'en as a mother
Folds her soft vestment round the child she
loves.

Soul of the dead, depart! Take thou the path—
The ancient path-by which our ancestors
Have gone before thee; thou shalt look upon
The two kings, mighty Varuna and Yama,
Delighting in oblations; thou shalt meet
The Fathers and receive the recompense
Of all thy stored-up offerings above.
Leave thou thy sin and imperfection here;
Return unto thy home once more; assume
A glorious form. By an auspicious path
Hasten to pass the four-eyed brindle dogs—
The two road-guarding sons of Sarama;
Advance to meet the Fathers who, with hearts
Kindly disposed toward thee, dwell in bliss
With Yama; and do thou, O mighty God,
Intrust him to thy guards to bring him to thee,
Ano grant him health and happiness eternal.

The ceremony was concluded by the careful closing of the tomb with a stone slab, and finally a mound of earth was raised to mark and consecrate the spot.

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Manu." It is the oldest and most sacred Sanscrit work after the Veda and its Sutras. It stands at the head of post-Vedic literature, being connected with the Veda through the Sutras. It is of the greatest interest as presenting a picture of the institutions, usages, manners and intellectual condition of an important tribe or school of the Brahmans at a remote period, and as showing the nature of the rules by which the Brahmans secured their supremacy in an organized caste system. It is also one of the most remarkable books that the literature of the whole world can offer, standing, in some of its moral teachings, at the level of Christianity itself.

It consists of a body of rules and maxims, probably by different authors, which existed unwritten for a very long period of time, and were handed down orally. An earlier collection is said to have contained 100,000 couplets arranged under twenty-four heads, in 1,000 chapters. The Code of Manu, as we have it, contains only 2,685 verses. Its character is

not that of a record of national ordinances and institutions, prevalent over any extended territory in India. It ultimately worked its way to acceptance by all Hindus, and secured for itself a degree of reverence only second to that accorded to the Veda. It became, moreover, the chief authority underlying Hindu jurisprudence. But its original position was that of a body of rules and precepts belonging to a school of Brahmans called Manavas, who lived in the northwest of India not far from Delhi.

In all probability the compiler of the code was a learned Brahman, whose genius for law led him to build from current precepts, together with ideals of his own, a body of rules designed to constitute a perfect system of religious, ceremonial, moral, political and social duties. A supposed divine progenitor, or divine. sage, named Manu, is represented as claiming that the god Brahma, having framed this system of laws, taught it fully to him in the beginning; that he taught it to the ten sages, his offspring, and that one of these, Bhrigu, having learned from Manu to recite the whole of it, promulgated it to the Rishis, or inspired authors, who gave it to the world.

The name Manu is derived from the root, man, which means to think or reason, and especially "to think upon and

understand the Veda." The date of this law-book of Manu appears to be that of the fifth century B. C. It is in twelve chapters or books. The root or basis of all law, it declares to be, (1) the whole Veda; (2) the traditional law; (3) the morality of those who know the Veda; and (4) the practices and customs, established from time immemorial, of good men. With the exception of the purely religious and philosophical precepts the bulk of the rules fall under the head of established practices sanctioned by the Veda and tradition. There are also practices of law and kingly government, embracing the procedure of legal tribunals and the rules of judicature and civil and criminal law; then penitential exercises, comprehending the rules of penance and expiation; and finally what are called "recompenses or consequences of acts," having reference not so much to conduct as to the effect of conduct according to the doctrine of transmigration. The regulations for the life of Brahmans engross six of the twelve books and are introduced throughout the other six.

The religious teaching of Manu is that of the later Vedic period. "Divinely revealed knowledge" in general, is called Veda. The eternity and infallible authority of the Veda, and the duty and expiatory efficacy of a complete knowledge of the three earliest Vedas, are insisted on in the strongest language. The fourth Vedic book, not being alluded to, was probably not yet in use. The following verses give a version of a passage in the twelfth book of Manu, interesting select sentences illustrating the laws of Manu and the ideas which the law-giver made familiar:

-some very

The Firmament, the Earth, the Sea, the Moon, The Sun, the Fire, the Wind, the Night, and both

The sacred Twilights, and the Judge of Souls,
The God of Justice, and the Heart itself-
All constantly survey the acts of men.

If with the great Divinity who dwells
Within thy breast thou hast no controversy,
Go not to Ganges' water to be cleansed,
Nor make a pilgrimage to Kuru's fields.
Thou canst not gather what thou dost not sow;
As thou dost plant the tree so will it grow.
Though thou mayest suffer for thy righteous

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Of all the sensual organs, purity,
Devotion, knowledge of the Deity,
Veracity, and abstinence from anger,
These form the tenfold summary of duty.

The mansion of the soul, composed of earth,
Subject to sorrow and decrepitude,
Inhabited by sickness and pains,

Bound by the bonds of ignorance and darkness,
Let a wise man with cheerfulness abandon.

Knowledge, descending from her home divine,
Said to a holy Brahman: "I am come
To be thy cherished treasure; trust me not
To scorners, but to careful guardians,
Pure, self-restrained, and pious; so in them
I shall be gifted with resistless power."

The man with hoary head is not revered
As aged by the gods, but only he

Who has true knowledge; he, though young, is old.

As with laborious toil the husbandman,
Digging with spade beneath the ground, arrives
At springs of living water, so the man
Who searches eagerly for truth will find
The knowledge hidden in his teacher's mind.

Think constantly, O son, how thou mayest please

Thy father, mother, teacher-these obey.
By deep devotion seek thy debt to pay.
This is thy highest duty and religion.

Wound not another, though by him provoked;
Do no one injury by thought or deed;
Utter no word to pain thy fellow-creatures.
The soul is its own witness; yea, the soul
Itself is its own refuge; grieve thou not,
O man, thy soul, the great internal Witness.

A second law-book stands next to Manu, and is at present the principal authority at Benares and in Middle India. It is that of Yajnavalkya. It is a more concise work than that of Manu, all the laws being comprised in three books instead of twelve. The first deals, in 376 couplets, with social and caste duties; the second, in 307 verses, with administrative judicature; the third, in 335 verses, with devotion, purification, expiation, pen

ance, etc.

The date of this work is supposed to be that of the first century of A fragment of the third book

our era. of this code directs that after the cremation of the dead the older mourners repeat to the others verses such as these: Does it not argue folly to expect Stability in man, who is as transient As a mere bubble and fragile as a stalk? Why should we utter wailings if a frame Composed of five material elements, Is decomposed by force of its own acts And once again resolved into its parts? The earth, the ocean, and the gods themselves Must perish-how should not the world Of mortals, light as froth, obey the law Of universal death and perish too?

In addition to these two earliest codes there are eighteen other principal codes ascribed to inspired law-givers; and in additition to these, other codes ascribed to mythical authors; and a vast number of legal treatises and commentaries based on ancient codes, by modern lawyers who are grouped under five schools, according to the books which they required as special authors.

Colossal

VIII.

An immense section of Epic Poems Hindu literature, immense in bulk and extraordinary in interest and significance, consists of the two great epic poems, the vastness of which, as compositions, places them among the wonders of the world. In their earliest form these epic poems are probably not later than the fifth century B. C. They were probably reconstructed and Brahmanized a century later, and, perhaps, became complete for one of them, the Ramayana, about the beginning of the third century B. C.; and for the second, the Maha-bharata, as late as the second century B. C. Probably a later epoch made changes such as to bring the final construction of both poems down to the beginning of the Christian era. The Ramayana tells the story of Rama, a human hero exalted to divine rank. It consists of about 48,000 lines, or three times the length of the Iliad of Homer. The Maha-bharata extends to 220,000 lines, and even the central story, around which the vast structure is built, occupies 50,000 lines. The two poems actually preserve a great number of the legends of India, stories of the gods and religious meditations, together with histori

cal chronicles of two of the most famous

kingdoms at the opposite or eastern and western borders of Middle India.

As reconstructed from their earliest

The

form, by Brahman hands, the great epics specially brought out the doctrine of Trimurti, or Trinity-Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The Ramayana, by Valmiki, under the form of a story of Ramayana. what befell the hero, Rama, presents a typical representation of the struggle between the powers of good and evil. A writer of authority says that there are in the whole range of the world's literature few more charming poems than the Ramayana; the classical purity, clearness and simplicity of its

style, the exquisite touches of true poetic feeling with which it abounds, its graphic descriptions of heroic incident and of nature's grandest scenes, the deep acquaintance it displays with the conflicting workings and most refined emotions of the human heart, all entitling it to rank among the most beautiful compositions that have appeared at any period or in any country. A typical declaration of Rama, the hero of the poem, is in these words: "There is nothing greater than truth; and truth should be esteemed the most sacred of all things. The Vedas have their sole foundation in truth." The wife of the hero, Sita, is presented as an ideal of womanly excellence according to Hindu ideas, and the beauty of the picture is hardly matched by anything in literature.

Maha-bharata

Character of the The second of the great epics, the Maha-bharata, is by far the longest epic poem that the world has ever produced. It is not only a poem, but a vast encyclopædia of Hindu mythology, legendary history, ethics and philosophy. Its original Brahman compiler gathered up the scattered legends and lays of India, many of which had been orally transmitted, and composed from them the earlier form of the poem. By later additions and changes it was brought to its present shape, 220,000 lines, in eighteen parvans or sections, nearly every one of which is large enough for a volume.

The fortunes of the five Pandavas, or sons of Panda, form the chief story of the poem. Their characters are drawn with the delicate touch of true art. The eldest is the Hindu ideal of excellence, a pattern of justice, integrity, calm composure, chivalrous honor and passionless heroism. Bhima is a type of courage and strength; a hero of gigantic stature, whose character justifies the meaning of his name, "terrible." Two other brothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, are both amiable, spirited and of noble character. But the real hero is the brother, Arjuna. His character conforms more to the European ideal of perfection. He is of undaunted bravery, refined and delicate sensibilities, a generous heart, tender, forgiving and affectionate as a woman, yet of superhuman strength and matchless in arms and athletic exercises.

These five brother heroes are matched, in the story of the poem, against one hun

dred brothers, princes, who are represented as of opposite character. The eldest and most conspicuous of the hundred is painted as a type of the evil principle in human nature, ever doing battle with the good and divine principle. The two sets of characters, although so uncongenial, are represented as cousins, educated together.

The five princes are said to have acquired "intelligence and learning, lofty aims, religious earnestness, and love of truth." In course of time the renown of the five excited the jealousy and ill-will of the father of their hundred cousins. From this the events of the story proceed through a long course of incidents, which finally reach a climax in the entire destruction of opposing representative armies and of all the hundred princes on one side. Then the story closes with the fortunes of the five Pandavas, who have won a kingdom only to renounce it and to pass through experiences which bring them at last to the heaven of Indra.

Of these two great poems the Ramayana is the more finished, and depicts a more polished state of society and a more advanced civilization. It also more exactly represents the exclusive and extreme ideas of Brahmanism. The second and greater of the two poems is a vast storehouse of mythology. It introduces, also, long discourses on religion, politics, morality and philosophy. There are narratives of the incarnation of Vishnu, stories connected with the worship of Siva, and many passages referring to Krishna as the incarnation of Vishnu. One supplement especially concerned with the later worship of Krishna is in itself a poem of 16,374 stanzas-longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined. The religious system of the longer epic is far more popular, liberal and comprehensive, more secular and human, and its narratives have more of historical probability, than the Ramayana. It also reflects the mixed character of Hinduism, all its varieties of thought and worship; and it contains more illustrations of real life and of domestic and social habits and manner.

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