Vaisnavism, Saivism and minor religious systems

Abstract

needful personal element in the shape of their f ounders.In the west, however, a theistic system with a god who had come to dwell among men arose.The various religious systems and superstitions that prevailed in the f ourth century B. C. are given in the f ollowing passage, occurring in the Niddesa, which though o f the nature o f a commentary is regarded as one of the books of the Pali Buddhistic Canon 1 ): "The deity of the lay followers of the Ājīvakas is the Ājīvakas, of those of the Nighaṇṭhas is the Nighaṇṭhas, of those of the Jaṭilas (asce tics wearing long matted hair) is the Jaṭilas, of those of the Paribbājakas is the Paribbājakas, of those of the Avaruddhakas is the Avaruddhakas, and the deity of those who are devoted to an elephant, a horse, a cow, a dog, a crow, Vāsudeva, Baladeva, Puṇṇabhadda, Maṇibhadda, Aggi, Nāgas, Supaṇṇas‚ Yakkhas, Asuras‚ Gandhabbas‚ Maharajas, Canda‚ Suriya‚ Inda‚ Brahma, Deva‚ Disā is the elephant, the horse, the cow, the dog, the crow, Vāsudeva, Baladeva, Puṇṇabhadda, Maṇibhadda, etc., respectively."Here a Buddhist who cannot but be expected to show scant courtesy to religious systems other than his own, places the worshippers of Vāsudeva and Baladeva on the same level with those of fire, moon, sun and Brahmā, and even elephants, crows, dogs, etc.But the worship of Vāsudeva was destined to become the pre dominant religion of a large part of India even to the supersession of that of fire, sun, moon and Brahmā and, of course, of the superstitious adoration of the lower animals.And it will be now our duty to trace its rise and progress.§ 3.In his comment on Pāṇini IV, 3, 98, Patañjali distinctly states that the Vāsudeva contained in the Sūtra is the name of the "worshipful", i. e. of one who is preeminently worshipful, i. e. God 2 ).The worship of Vāsudeva must be regarded to be as old as Pāṇini.In an inscription found at Ghosuṇḍi in Rājputāna 3) which unfor tunately is in a mutilated condition, the construction of a wall round the hall of worship of Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva is mentioned.From the form of the characters in the inscription it appears to have been engraved at least two hundred years B. C.In another inscription recently discovered at Besnagar 4 ).Heliodora represents himself to have erected a Garuḍadhvaja or a column with the image of Garuḍa at the top in honour of Vāsudeva, the god of gods.Heliodora calls himself a Bhāgavata, was the son of Diya‚ was a native of Takṣaśilā and is spoken of as an ambassador of the Yavana and as such came on a political mission from Amtalikita to Bhā¬ gabhadra who must have ruled over E astern Mālwa.In this inscription occurs the name Aṃtalikita which in all likelihood is the same as Antialkidas of the Bactro-Greek coins.This name as well as the form of the characters show that it belongs to the earlier part of the second century before the Christian era.At that time Vāsudeva was worshipped as the god of gods and his worshippers l ) This passage has been furnished to me by Mr. Dharmanand Kosambi. ) See JRAS.191o‚ p. 168. 3) Lüders, List of Brāhmī I nscriptions, No. 6. 4) I bid.No. 669.I*Nārada is represented to have gone to the Badarikāśrama to see Nara and Nārāyaṇa.The latter was engaged in the performance of religious rites.Nārada asked Nārāyaṇa whom he worshipped, while he himself was the Supreme Lord.Nārāyaṇa told him that he worshipped his original Prakṛti (form), the source of all that is and that is to be.Nara and Nārāyaṇa as well as Kṛṣṇa and Hari‚ sons of Dharma‚ are represented as the four forms of the Supreme.Nārada flies into the sky to see that original Prakṛti and alights on a peak of Meru.There he saw white men without senses, not eating anything, sinless, with heads like umbrellas, making a sound like that of thundering clouds and devoted to Bhagavat.Then Yudhiṣṭhira asks Bhīṣma who those people were, and how they came to be what they were.Bhīṣma tells the story of the king Vasu Uparicara, who worshipped God according to the Sātvata Vidhi (form of ritual).He was a glorious king honoured by Indra, devoted to truth and holy.The best of the learned in the Pāñcarātra system were honoured with the first seat at dinner by him.The narrator then proceeds to mention the Citraśikhaṇḍins, who appear to be the original promulgators of this religion.The mountain Meru was the place where they revealed it.They were seven, consisting of Marīci‚ Atri‚ Aṅgiras, Pulastya, Pulaha‚ Kratu‚ and Vasiṣṭha.The eighth was Svāyanibhuva.From these eight emanated this excellent Śāstra.This they promulgated in the presence of the great Bhagavat, who said to the Ṛṣis: "You have com posed a hundred thousand excellent Ślokas (stanzas), which contain rules for all the affairs of men and are in harmony with Yajus, Sāman, Ṛc‚ and Atharvāṅgiras, and lay down precepts about the religion of action as well as that of contemplation or repose.I created Brahman from my peaceful and Rudra from my wrathful nature.This Śāstra will be handed down from person to person until it reaches Bṛhaspati.From Bṛhaspati the king Vasu will obtain it.The king will follow this Śāstra and will become my devotee.After his death this Śāstra will be lost."Telling all this the great god disappeared.Then the Citraśikhaṇḍins spread the religion until it reached Bṛhaspati.Then the old Kalpa having ended and the son of Aṅgiras, the priest of the gods, being born, the gods were happy.The king Vasu Uparicara was his first pupil.He learned this Śāstra from Bṛhaspati.At one time he brought forward an extensive horsesacrifice, but no animal was killed on the occasion.The oblations were devised in accordance with the words of the Āraṇyakas.The god of gods showed himself to Vasu and accepted his oblation, but was unseen by anybody else.Since the oblation was taken away by Hari without showing himself to Bṛhaspati, the latter got angry and dashed upwards the sacrificial ladle.At that sacrifice, E kata‚ Dvita‚ and Trita, sons of Prajāpati, and sixteen Ṛṣis‚ many of whom are now known as the authors of literary works, such as Medhātithi, Tittiri‚ and Tāṇḍya‚ are represented to have been present.When Bṛhaspati was angry, they all said that the great Hari was not to be seen by any man at random, but by one who was favoured by his grace.E kata‚ Dvita and Trita said: "On one occasion we went to the north for the attainment of eternal bliss near the milky ocean and practised austerities for four thousand years and at the end a voice in the air declared: 'Well, how can you see that great Lord?In the milky ocean there is a white island where there are men possessing the lustre of the moon, who are the devotees of the god, possess no senses, do not eat anything and being devoted solely to the god (E kāntin or monotheistic) are absorbed in him, who is bright like the Sun.Go to that island; there shines my soul'.Accordingly we went to the white island, and, dazzled by the light of that being, were not able to see him.Then the truth flashed upon us that the god cannot be seen by us unless we have gone through austerities.After further austerities for a hundred years we saw the men of the lustre of the moon with their minds fully absorbed in the contemplation of God.The refulgence of each man was like that of the sun on the last day.Then we heard a sound: 'Jitaṃ te Puṇḍarīkākṣa' etc. (Triumphant art thou, Lotus eyed one).A short time after a voice in the air declared: 'Go you away as you came.That great being is not to be seen by one who is not devoted to him'.Then we returned without being able to see him.How then will you be able to see him?"Having heard this from E kata‚ Dvita and Trita‚ Bṛhaspati finished the sacrifice.Vasu Uparicara had to live in a hole in the earth on account of the curse of the Ṛṣis, who in a controversy with the gods maintained that no animal should be sacrificed, but only vegetable grain, while the gods contended that a goat should be sacrificed.The question was referred to Vasu who declared in favour of the gods.Vasu was raised from the hole by Nārāyaṇa, whom he had devotedly worshipped, by sending his Garuḍa to lift him up.He was thence taken to the Brahma world.The story of Nārada's visit to Śvetadvīpa is then continued.He praises the great being by uttering names expressive of his purity and grandeur, and the great being then manifested himself to him, saying that he was not to be seen by one who was not solely devoted to him (E kāntin) and that, as Nārada was such a one, he showed himself to him.He then proceeds to explain to him the religion of Vāsudeva.Vāsudeva is the supreme soul, the internal soul of all souls.He is the supreme creator.All living beings are represented by Saṃkarṣaṇa, who is a form of Vāsudeva.From Saṃkarṣaṇa sprang Pradyumna, the mind, and from Pradyumna Aniruddha, selfcon¬ sciousness."Those who are devoted to me enter into me and are released."The great being calls the four mentioned above his forms (Mūrtis).The production of one form from another is also mentioned; all these forms are, however, styled his forms (Mūrtis).He then proceeds to mention the creation of gods and all other things by him self and their final dissolution into himself.Then are mentioned his incarnations (Avatāras), viz.Varāha‚ Narasiṃha, the oppressor of Bali, Rāma of the Bhṛgu race and destroyer of the Kṣatriyas, Rāma Dāśarathi, and ''he, who will come into existence for the destruction of Kaṃsa at Mathurā and after having killed many demons will finally settle at Dvārakā".In this manner having done all things by his four Mūrtis‚ he destroyed Dvārakā with the Sātvatas and went to Brahmaloka.After Nārada had heard this from the supreme Nārāyaṇa, he returned to Badarikāśrama.belonging to the Kaṇhāyana Gotra, and from the verse itself, in which Vāsudevassa Kaṇhassa occurs, it would appear that Kaṇha was the family name, the sense being Vāsudeva, the Kaṇha, so that the author of the verse itself would seem to regard Vāsudeva as the proper name of the individual, and thus he and the prose narrative agree.§ 8. Thus then Vāsudeva appears to be a proper name and not a patronymic, and when the Vāsudeva religion or the Bhāgavata school took its rise, that was the name by which the Supreme Deity was known.The conception of Vāsudeva as his father must have arisen afterwards, as appears to me from the example Vāsudevaḥ given in the Mahābhā¬ ṣya in the sense of "son or descendant of Vāsudeva", and not "of Vasu¬ deva", as must be inferred from the analogous instance of Baladeva from Baladeva.Baladeva was associated with Vāsudeva and not with Vasudeva.Kṛṣṇa‚ Janārdana, and Keśava do not appear to be Vṛṣṇi names and were given to Vāsudeva in subsequent times when his worship had widely spread.All these three occur in Patañjali also, but the two latter only once so far as I know.But of these the name Kṛṣṇa is more important than the other two and many others that are used.It appears to be as much a proper name as Vās ched to it.How then did this name Kṛṣṇa come to be used?It was the name of one of the Vedic Ṛṣis‚ the composer of hymn 74 of the eighth Maṇḍala.He speaks of himself as Kṛṣṇa in verses 3 and 4 of the hymn.The author of the Anukramaṇī calls him an Aṅgirasa or descendant of Aṅgiras.In the KB.(XXX, 9) apparently the same Kṛṣṇa Aṅgirasa is alluded to and is represented to have 'seen' the evening libation in its connection with the Brāhmaṇā¬ cchaṃsin priest.Kṛṣṇa occurs in a Gaṇa attached to P. IV, I , 96.In the Gaṇa connected with P. IV, 1, 99 Kṛṣṇa and Raṇa are repre sented to form the Gotra names Kārṣṇāyana and Rāṇāyana, these mere Brāhmaṇa Gotras falling under the group of Vāsiṣṭ:has.The former is the Gotra alluded to by the commentator on the verses in the Jâtakas noticed above.But he apparently does not confine it to the Brāhmaṇa class.Then the name Kṛṣṇa as the son of Devakī occurs in the ChāndogyaUpaniṣad (III, 17).He was the pupil of Ghora‚ who was an Āṅgirasa.If Kṛṣṇa was also an Aṅgirasa, which is not improbable, it must be inferred that there was a tradition about Kṛṣṇa as a sage from the time of the Ṛgvedic hymns to the time of the ChāndogyaUpaniṣad, and about a Gotra of the name of Kārṣṇāyana, which literally means collection of Kṛṣṇas‚ of which the original Kṛṣṇa was the founder.This tradition gave rise to the identification of the sage Kṛṣṇa with Vāsudeva, when he was raised to the rank of the supreme deity.Just as the name Janamejaya, the son of Parikṣit, which occurs in the AB., was in subsequent times used as the name of the person to whom the Mahābhārata was narrated and a genealogy was given to him from Arjuna‚ the Pāṇḍava, so it is possible that Vāsudeva was identified with the sage Kṛṣṇa and a genealogy given to him in the Vṛṣṇi race through Śūra and Vasudeva.Perhaps the best explanation of the fact of Vāsudeva having been called Kṛṣṇa is that given by the to have belonged to the Pārāśara subdivision of that group in the Matsyapurāṇa (ch.200) 1 ).Though this was a Brāhmaṇa and Pārāśara Gotra, it could be assumed for sacrificial purposes by a Kṣatriya, for according to Aśvalāyana (Sr.S.XII‚ 15) the Gotra and the ancestors invoked of the Kṣatriyas are those of their priests or chaplains, and the only Ṛṣi ancestors that all the Kṣatriyas have, are Mānava, Aila and Paurūravasa.The names of these do not distinguish one Kṣatriya family from another and, to answer the purposes of such a distinction, the Gotra and ancestors of the priest are assumed.Vāsudeva therefore belonged to the Kārṣṇāyana Gotra, though it was a Brāhmaṇa and Pārāśara Gotra, and as belonging to this Gotra he could be called Kṛṣṇa by name.Having come to be known by that name, all the traditions about the learning and spiritual insight of the old Kṛṣṇa and also of his being the son of Devakī were en grafted on him, and thus in the Sabhāparvan 38 Bhīṣma says that one of the two reasons for giving the highest honours to Kṛṣṇa was that he possessed the knowledge of the Vedas and dependent treatises (Vedāṅgas), and that he was also a sacrificial priest (Ṛtvij).The Hindu habit of thought of identifying one god with others by regar ding the latter either as forms or incarnations of the former and thus evolving monotheism out of polytheism led to the identification of this Vāsudeva with other gods and with the boy Kṛṣṇa of

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