A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Outline of Universal History

G >> George Park Fisher >> Outline of Universal History




THE VEDIC RELIGION.--The early religion of the Indian Aryans was quite
different from the system that grew up later among them. We do not
find in it the dreamy pantheism that appears afterwards. It is
cheerful in its tone, quite in contrast with the gloomy asceticism
which is stamped on it in after times. The head of each family is
priest in his own household. It is only the great tribal sacrifice
which is offered by priests set apart for the service. The worship is
polytheistic, but not without tendencies to monotheism. The principal
divinities are the powers of nature. The deities (_deva_) were
the heavenly or the shining ones. "It was the beautiful phenomenon of
light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind." The
chief gods were the Father-heaven; Indra, the god of thunder and of
rain, from whom the refreshing showers descended; Varuna, the
encompassing sky; and Agni, the god of fire. Among these _Indra_,
from his beneficence, more and more attracted worship. _Soma_,
too, was worshiped; soma being originally the intoxicating juice of a
plant. _Brihaspati_, the lord of prayer, personifying the
omnipresent power of prayer, was adored. Thirty-three gods in all were
invoked. The bodies of the dead were consumed on the funeral-pile. The
soul survived the body, but the later doctrine of transmigration was
unknown. All the attributes of sovereign power and majesty were
collected in _Varuna_. No one can fathom him, but he sees and
knows all. He is the upholder of order; just, yet the dispenser of
grace, and merciful to the penitent. Worship is made up of oblations
and prayers. It must be sincere. The gods will not tolerate
deceit. They require faith. Of the last things and the last times the
Rig-Veda hardly speaks. The Vedic hymns have much to say of the origin
of things, but little, except in the last book, of the final issues.

There are four Vedas,--the _Rig-Veda_, which has the body of
hymns; the _Yajur-Veda_, in which the prescribed formulas to be
used in acts of sacrifice are collected; the _Sama-Veda_,
containing the chants; and the _Atharva-Veda_, a collection of
hymns, in part of a later date. Besides, each Veda contains, as a
second part, one or more Brâhmanas, or prose treatises on the
ceremonial system. In addition, there are theological works
supplementary, and of later origin,--the intermediate
_Aranyakas_, and the _Upanishads_, which are of a
speculative cast.

Not only is nature--mountains, rivers, trees, etc.--personified in the
Vedas: the animals--as the cow, the horse, the dog, even the apparatus
of worship, the war-chariot, the plow, and the furrow--are addressed
in prayer. The sacrificial fire is deified in _Agni_, the
sacrificial drink in _Soma_. Indra has for his body-guards the
_Maruts_, gods of the storm and lightning. He is a warlike god,
standing in his chariot, but also a beneficent giver of all good
gifts. _Varuna_ is the god of the vast luminous heavens, in their
serene majesty. _Indra_, on the other hand, represents the
atmosphere in its active and militant energy. The number of the gods
is variously given. In passages, they are said to be many thousands.

RITES.--There is no hierarchy among the gods. But there is a tendency
to confuse the attributes of the different divinities. Occasionally,
for the time being, one eclipses all the rest, and is addressed as if
all others were forgotten. There is sometimes a tendency to regard
them as all one, under different names. But this tendency develops
itself later. Offerings consisted of rice, cakes, soma, etc. Victims
also were sacrificed, the horse especially; also the goat, the
buffalo, and other animals. Sacrifice purchases the gifts and favor of
the gods. It is an expression of gratitude and dependence. It has,
moreover, a deep, mysterious energy of an almost magical character.

THE ARYANS ON THE GANGES.--Later, but earlier than 1000 B.C., we find
that the Aryan invaders have moved onward in their career of conquest,
and have planted themselves on the plains of the Ganges. A marvelous
transformation has taken place in their social constitution, their
religion, and in their general spirit. The caste system has sprung up,
of which there are few traces in the Rig-Veda. In the first or lowest
of these distinct classes are the _Sudras_, or despised serfs,
who are the subjugated aborigines; the second, or next higher, class
is composed of the tillers of the soil, who are of a lower rank than
the third, the warrior caste. These, in turn, fall below the
_Brahmans_, or priests, who, as rites of worship grew more
complicated, and superstition increased, gained, though not without a
struggle, a complete ascendency. This marks the beginning of the
sacerdotal era. The tendency of the farmer caste was to decrease,
until, in modern times, in various provinces they are hardly
found. The supremacy of the Brahmans was largely owing to their
eminence as the great literary caste. They arose out of the families
by whom the hymns had been composed, and who managed the tribal
sacrifices. They alone understood the language of the hymns and the
ritual. _Brahman_, in the earliest Veda, signifies a worshiper.

BRAHMINICAL PANTHEISM.--The polytheism of the earlier type of religion
was converted into pantheism. _Brahma_, the supreme being, is
impersonal, the eternal source of all things, from which all finite
beings--gods, nature, and men--emanate. It is by _emanation_,--an
outflow analogous to that of a stream from its fountain, in
distinction from _creation_, implying will and
self-consciousness,--that all derived existences emerge into
being. With this doctrine was connected the belief in the
transmigration of souls. All animated beings, including plants as well
as animals, partake of the universal life which has its origin and
seat in Brahma. Alienation from Brahma, finite, individual being, is
evil. To work the way back to Brahma is the great aim and
hope. Absorption in Brahma, return to the primeval essence, is the
supreme good. The sufferings of the present are the penalty of sins
committed in a pre-existent state. If they are not purged away, the
soul is condemned to be embodied again and again,--it may be, in some
repulsive animal. This process of metempsychosis might be repeated far
into the indefinite future. With the doctrine of Brahma and of
transmigration was connected the feeling that all life is sacred. The
Brahman spared even trees and plants from destruction. Pollution or
defilement might be contracted in a great variety of ways. There grew
out of these ideas of sin, rigorous penances, most painful forms of
self-torment. It was only by practices of this sort that there was
hope of avoiding the retribution so much dreaded.

THE BRAHMINICAL CODES.--The principal of these codes is the _Laws of
Manu_. Manu was imagined to be the first human being, conceived of
as a sage. This code is a digest compiled by the priests at a date
unknown, but comprising in it materials of a very high
antiquity. Hence, while exhibiting Brahmanism in its maturer form, it
affords glimpses of society at a much earlier date. A second code was
compiled not earlier than the second century A.D. These codes present
Hindu law under three heads: (1) domestic and civil rights and duties,
(2) the administration of justice, (3) purification and penance. In
truth, the codes prescribe regulations for every department of
life. The obligations of kings, of Brahmans, and of every other class,
are defined in detail. One motive that is kept in view is to set forth
and fortify the special privileges of the Brahminical order.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMINS.--In process of time, commentaries on
the Vedas were multiplied. Discord arose in the interpretation of the
sacred books. Out of this debate and confusion there emerged, in the
seventh and sixth centuries B.C., several philosophical systems. These
aimed to give peace to the soul by emancipating it from the bondage of
matter, and by imparting a sense of independence of the body and of
the external world.

These old philosophies are preserved in the _Upanishads_, or
Instructions. The main idea in these diverse systems--the
_Sankhya_, the _Vedanta_, etc.--is, that the soul's notion
of itself as separate from the supreme, impersonal being, is the
fallen state. This duality must be overcome. Conscious of its
identity with the Supreme, the soul enters into _yoga_, or the
state of unison with the Infinite. He who is thus taken away from
the illusions of sense, or the _yogin_, is free from the power
of things perishable. Death brings a complete absorption into the
source of all being. It is the bliss of personal extinction. This
sort of philosophy attached great value to contemplation and
self-renunciation. It led to a light esteem of ritual practices and
ceremonies.



BUDDHISM.

The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in
India since the time when it was presented to view in the
law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New
movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its
character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.--Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary
information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The
date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He
belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal
line of the Çâkyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and
thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in
luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of
mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his
young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to
meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers
he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of
meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a
life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to
truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have
promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he
charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.

THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.--Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against
the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the
Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services
rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not
required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which
others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting
on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation
from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake
a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of
life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his
opposition to caste.

THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.--Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always
attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from
passion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4)
that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at
NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and
vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a
perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the
consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the
stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance,
doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into
Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha
held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed
to the soul no substantial existence. It is the _Karma_, or
another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of
all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism
involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where
this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and
indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching,
there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not
less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of
Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of
chastity, patience, and compassion; the unresisting endurance of all
ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.

DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.--By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He
was placed among the Brahminical gods, by whom he was served. A
multitude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics
were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine
and precepts of the founder, there accumulated a mass of superstitious
beliefs and observances.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.--After the death of Buddha, it is said that
his disciples, to the number of five hundred, assembled, and divided
his teaching into three branches,--his own words, his rules of
discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries
Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous
agents in its diffusion was _Asoka_, the king of Behar, who was
converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout
India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on
rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among
the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing
of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He
carried the Buddhistic faith as far as _Ceylon_. It spread over
_Burmah_ (450 A.D.). _Siam_ was converted (638 A.D.), and
_Java_ between the fifth and seventh centuries of our
era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries passed into
_China_ in the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an
established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion
numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human
race.

THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.--In India Buddhism did not supplant the old
religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology
more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic
speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial
practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to
be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their
system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which
were not known in previous times. The divinities, _Brahma_, the
author of all things, _Vishnu_ the preserver, and _Siva_ the
destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of
triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the
creed, _Krishna_ being one of his incarnate names. For centuries
Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed,
and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and
thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with
multitudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of
its birth.

THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.--In 327 B.C., _Alexander the Great_
advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab,
which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the
kings, _Porus_, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The
heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the
Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of
penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he
built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established
alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.)
and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of
Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time
a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices
of _Chandra Gupti_, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus
ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he
gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent
Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek
art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six
centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into
northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements,
and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long
struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north
and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic
faith, were not without a marked influence--the precise lines of which
it is difficult to trace--upon the history and life of India during
the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The
_Dravidian_ people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans,
number at present forty-six millions.

LITERATURE.--Mill's _History of India_ (Wilson's edition, 9
vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, _Indian Wisdom_; Max Müller's
_History of Sanskrit Literature_; EARTH'S _The Religions of
India_, 1882; _Encycl. Brit._, Arts. _India, Brahmanism,
Buddhism_.




SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS.




CHAPTER I. EGYPT.


THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.--When the curtain that hides the far distant
past is lifted, we find in the valley of the Nile a people of a dark
color, tinged with red, and a peculiar physiognomy, who had long
existed there. Of their beginnings, there is no record. It is not
likely that they came down the river from the south, as some have
thought; more probably they were of Asiatic origin. Their language,
though it certainly shows affinities with the Semitic tongues in its
grammar, is utterly dissimilar in its vocabulary: its modern
descendant is the Coptic, no longer a spoken dialect. The Egyptians
were of the Caucasian variety, but not white like the Lybians on the
west. On the east were tribes of a yellowish complexion and various
lineage, belonging to the numerous people whom the Egyptians
designated as _Amu_. On the south, in what was called
_Ethiopia_, was a negro people; and, also beyond them and
eastward, a dusky race, of totally different origin, a branch of the
widely diffused _Cushites_.

THE NILE: DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.--Egypt (styled by its ancient
inhabitants, from the color of the soil deposited by the Nile,
_Kem_ or the Black Land, and by the Hebrews called
_Mizraim_) is the creation of the great river. "Egypt," says
Herodotus, "is the gift of the Nile;" and this is not only true, as
the historian meant it, physically, because it is the Nile that
rescued the land from the arid waste by which it is bordered; but the
course of Egyptian history--the occupations, habits, and religion of
the people--was largely determined by the characteristics of the
river. The sources of the Nile have had in all ages the fascination of
mystery, and have been a fruitful theme for conjecture. It was
reserved for modern explorers to ascertain that it takes its rise in
equatorial Africa, in the two great lakes, the _Albert_ and
_Victoria Nyanzas_. From that region, fed by few tributaries, it
flows to the Mediterranean, a distance of two thousand miles, but
breaks, as it nears the sea, into two main and several minor
arms. These spread fruitfulness over the broad plain called, from its
shape, the _Delta._ Above the Delta the fringe of productive land
has a width of only a few miles on either side of the stream. Its
fertility is due to the yearly inundation which, as the effect of the
rainfall of Abyssinia, begins early in July, and terminates in
November, when the river, having slowly risen in the interval to an
average height of twenty-three or twenty-four feet, reaches in its
gradual descent the ordinary level. This narrow belt of territory,
annually enriched with a layer of fertile mud, is in striking contrast
with the barren regions, parched by the sun, on either side, with the
long chain of Arabian mountains that adjoin it on the east, and with
the low hills of the Lybian desert on the west. By dikes, canals, and
reservoirs, the beneficent river from the most ancient times has been
made to irrigate the land above, where are the towns and dwellings of
the people, and thus to extend and keep up its unrivaled
fertility. The country of old was divided into two parts,--_Upper
Egypt,_ as it is now called, with _Thebes_ for its principal
city, extending from the first cataract, near _Syene,_ to the
Memphian district; and _Lower Egypt,_ embracing the rest of the
country on the north, including the Delta. The two divisions were
marked by differences of dialect and of customs. The country was
further divided into _nomes,_ or districts, about forty in all,
but varying in number at different times. They were parted from one
another by boundary stones. Each had its own civil organization, a
capital, and a center of worship.

EARLY CULTURE.--At a far remote day, there existed in Lower Egypt an
advanced type of culture. Sepulchers, with their inscriptions and
sculptures, were made of so solid material that they have remained to
testify to this fact. When the pyramids were built, mechanical skill
was highly developed, Egyptian art had reached a point beyond which it
scarcely advanced, and the administration of government had attained
substantially to the form in which it continued to exist. The use of
writing, the division of the year, the beginnings of the sciences and
of literature, are found in this earliest period. Egyptian culture, as
far as we can determine, was not borrowed. It was a native
product. The earliest period was the period of most growth. The
prevailing tendency was to crystallize all arts and customs into
definite, established forms, and to subject every thing to fixed
rules. The desire to preserve what had been gained overmastered the
impulses to progress: individuality and enterprise were blighted by an
excessive spirit of conservatism. Moreover, the culture of the
Egyptians never disengaged itself from its connection with every-day
practical needs, or the material spirit that lay at its root. They did
not, like the Greeks, soar into the atmosphere of theoretical science
and speculation. They did not break loose from the fetters of
tradition.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS.--We owe our knowledge of ancient Egypt chiefly to
hieroglyphical writing. The hieroglyphs, except those denoting
numbers, were pictures of objects. The writing is of three kinds. The
_first_, the hieroglyphical, is composed of literal pictures, as
a circle, O, for the sun, a curved line for the moon, a pointed oval
for the mouth. The _second_ sort of characters, the hieratic, and
the _third_, the demotic, are curtailed pictures, which can thus
be written more rapidly. They are seldom seen on the monuments, but
are the writing generally found on the papyrus rolls or
manuscripts. They are written from right to left. The hieroglyphs
proper may be written either way, or in a perpendicular line. In the
demotic, or people's writing, the characters are somewhat more
curtailed, or abridged, than in the hieratic, or priestly,
style. There were four methods of using the hieroglyphics in
historical times. _First_, there were the primary,
representational characters, the literal pictures. _Secondly_,
the characters were used figuratively, as symbols. Thus a circle, O,
meant not only the sun, but also "day"; the crescent denoted not only
the moon, but also "a month;" a pen and inkstand signified "writing,"
etc. So one object was substituted for another analogous to it,--as
the picture of a boot in a trap, which stood for "deceit." A
conventional emblem, too, might represent the object. Thus, the hawk
denoted the sun, two water-plants meant Upper and Lower Egypt.
_Thirdly_, hieroglyphics were used as determinatives. That is, an
object would be denoted by letters (in a way that we shall soon
explain), and a picture be added _to determine_, or make clear,
what was meant. After proper names, they designated the sex; after the
names of other classes, as animals, they specified the particular
genus. _Fourthly_, the bulk of the hieroglyphs are phonetic. They
stand for sounds. The picture stood for the initial sound of the name
of the object depicted. Thus the picture of an eagle, _akhôm_,
represented "A." Unfortunately, numerous objects were employed for a
like purpose, to indicate the same sound. Hence the number of
characters was multiplied. The whole number of signs used in writing
is not less than nine hundred or a thousand. The discovery of the
Rosetta Stone--a large black slab of stone--with an identical
inscription in hieroglyphics, in demotic and in Greek, furnished to
_Champollion_ (1810) and to _Young_ the clew to the
deciphering of the Egyptian writing, and thus the key to the sense of
the monumental inscriptions. The Egyptian manuscripts were made of the
pith of the byblus plant, cut into strips. These were laid side by
side horizontally, with another layer of strips across them; the two
layers being united by paste, and subjected to a heavy pressure. The
Egyptians wrote with a reed, using black and red ink.

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