The Mythology of All Races/Volume 6/Indian/Introduction

by Arthur Berriedale Keith

INTRODUCTION

THE earliest record of Indian mythology is contained in the Ṛgveda, or "Hymn Veda," a series of ten books of hymns celebrating the chief Vedic gods. The exact motives of the collection are uncertain, but it is clear that in large measure the hymns represent those used in the Soma sacrifice, which formed a most important part of the worship of the gods in the ritual of the subsequent period. It is now recognized that the religion and mythology contained in this collection are not primitive in character and that they represent the result of a long period of development of sacred poetry. Thus it is that the gods who form the subject of this poetry often appear obscure in character, though in the great majority of cases it is clear that the myths related of them refer to physical happenings. The date of the Ṛgveda is much disputed and admits of no definite determination; it may be doubted whether the oldest poetry contained in it is much earlier than 1200 B.C., but it is not probable that it was composed later than 800 B.C., even in its most recent portions.

Both in its mythology and in its composition the Ṛgveda is clearly older than the other three Vedas, the Sāmaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda—the "Chant Veda," the "Formula Veda," and the "Veda of the Atharvan Priests"—and, in point of date, these three stand much on a level with the Brāhmaṇas, or explanatory prose texts which are attached to or form part of them. In them are to be found many speculations of a more advanced kind than those of the Ṛgveda, yet at the same time the Atharvaveda contains a mass of popular religion which has been taken up and worked over by the same priestly classes to whose activity the other texts are due. It must, therefore, be recognized that the Ṛgveda gives only an imperfect impression of Indian mythology and that, in a sense, it is the work of an aristocracy; but at the same time it is impossible to regard the Atharvaveda as a direct complement of the Ṛgveda and as giving the popular side of the Ṛgvedic religion. The Atharvaveda was probably not reduced to its present form much, if at all, earlier than 500 B.C., and the popular worship included in it is one which is at once separated by a considerable period in time from that of the Ṛgveda and is presented to us, not in its primitive form, but as it was taken up by the priests. The other Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas may be referred roughly to a period which runs from 800 to 600 B.C. To the Brāhmaṇas are attached, more or less closely, treatises called Āraṇyakas ("Silvan"), which were to be studied by oral tradition in the solitude of the forests, and Upaniṣads, treatises of definitely philosophical content, whose name is derived from the "session" of the pupils around their teacher. The oldest of these works probably date from before 500 B.C. On the other hand, the Sūtras, or rules regarding the sacrifice both in its more elaborate and in its more domestic forms, and regulations concerning custom and law give incidental information as to the more popular side of religion.

The Sūtras, at any rate, and possibly even the Brāhmaṇas, in their later portions, are contemporaneous with the beginnings of the two great epics of India, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. The first composition of these works as real epics, made up from ballads and other material, may be assigned to the fourth century B.C., and it is probable that the Rāmāyaṇa was practically complete before the Christian era. In the case of the Mahābhārata, however, there is no doubt that the original heroic epic has been overwhelmed by a vast mass of religious, philosophical, and didactic matter, and that it was not practically complete before the sixth century A.D., though most of it probably may be dated in the period from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D. These works reveal, to an extent which cannot be paralleled in the texts of the preceding periods, the religion of the warrior class and of the people generally. It cannot be assumed that the religion thus described is a later development, in point of time, than the Vedic religion, so far as the chief features of this religion are concerned; but much of the mythology is clearly a working over of the tales reported in the period of the Brāhmaṇas, of which, in so far, the epic period is a legitimate successor.

The epic period is followed by that of the Purāṇas, which show undoubted signs of the development of the religion and mythology of the epics. No doubt the material in these texts is often old, and here and there narratives are preserved in a form anterior to that now seen in the Mahābhārata. Yet, on the whole, it is probable that no Purāṇa antedates 600 A.D., and there is little doubt that portions of some of them are much later, falling within the last few centuries. Nor, indeed, is there any definite check to the continuance of this literature: at least two of the Purāṇas have no definite texts, and any author, without fear of positive contradiction, is at liberty to compose a poem in honour of a place of worship or of pilgrimage, and to call it a portion of either of these Purāṇas. This is the literature which, to the present day, contains the authoritative sacred texts of Hindu myth and worship. Yet it is essentially priestly and learned, and the popular religion which it embodies has been elaborated and confused, so that it is necessary, for a clear view of modern Hindu mythology, to supplement the account of the Purāṇas with records taken from the actual observation of the practices of modern India.

Besides the main stream of Hindu mythology there are important currents in the traditions of the Buddhists and the Jains. Buddhism has left but faint traces of its former glories in India itself; undoubtedly from about 500 B.C. to 700 A.D. it must be ranked among the greatest of Indian religions, and in the school of the Mahāyāna, or "Great Vehicle," it developed an elaborate mythology which displays marked original features. In comparison with Buddhism Jainism has added little to the mythology of India, but in its own way it has developed many themes of Indian mythology, with the main doctrines of which it remains in much closer contact than does Buddhism.

The subject, therefore, divides itself, in accordance with the literary sources upon which any treatment must be based, into seven divisions:

I.	The Period of the Ṛgveda (Chapters I and II);
II.	The Period of the Brāhmaṇas (Chapter III);
III.	The Period of the Epics (Chapters IV and V);
IV.	The Period of the Purāṇas (Chapter VI);
V.	The Mythology of Buddhism (Chapter VII);
VI.	The Mythology of Jainism (Chapter VIII);
VII.	The Mythology of Modern India (Chapter IX).