CHAPTER I.

"In every country where there are national legends they are always deeply and vividly impressed with a feeling of the magnificence or loneliness in the midst of which they have arisen."-Guesses at Truth.

In the Mahabharata, Siva is the god of the Himalaya mountains, its summits his brow, its lofty crags and forests his hair. The Ganges could not descend to earth until he consented to receive its waters on his head. When he was propitiated, and Ganga heard the word "descend !"

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Full of wrath, the mandate heard Himavan's majestic daughter, To a giant's stature soaring, and intolerable speed,

From heaven's height down rushed she, pouring upon Siva's sacred head."

But with such pride and impetuosity she came, that the

God grew angry, and locked up her struggling floods amid his labyrinthine hair, until, being again propitiated, he permitted the waters to burst forth and find their way to the plains of India by seven separate streams.

We first hear of Siva worship about B.C. 300, some centuries after the first promulgation of Buddhism, but before Buddhism had become the Court religion. At that time Alexander the Great was dead: Seleucus held Bactria and Babylon, and his ambassador Megasthenes dwelt with Hindu Rajas at Patna, on the Ganges. Brahmanical philosophy had before this time made war upon the Vedas; Rain and Fire-worship had become obsolete, and Sacrifice typical; the Greeks were not therefore likely to see Somafestivals, or to hear of offerings to Indra and Agni; and as the philosophic Brahmans reserved their religious doctrine for the privileged few, the only obvious religions were those of the populace, which Megasthenes describes as Siva worship on the hills and Vaishnaiva worship in the plains. The first was, he says, celebrated in tumultuous festivals, the worshippers anointing their bodies, wearing crowns of flowers and sounding bells and cymbals. From this the Greeks conjecture that Siva worship must be derived from Bacchus or Dionysus, and have been carried to the East in the traditionary expedition which Bacchus made in company with Hercules. This view was confirmed by finding that the wild vine grew in some of the very districts where this worship flourished. But these conjectures are treated by Professor Lassen as pure invention, and all that he accepts from the observations of Megasthenes is, that Siva worship was prevalent in the hills of India previous to the reign of Chandragupta.

For a time the Brahmans resisted this innovation, and refused their patronage both to Siva and his worshippers; but the popular current was too strong for their virtue, it swept away their breakwaters, and left them in danger of unimportance and neglect. Then perceiving their selfish errors, and looking for a selfish remedy, the old Brahmans resolved to consecrate the people's harbours, or, in other words, to adopt the people's gods. Unable to stand like Moses, firmly promulgating a law which they declared Divine, they took the part of Aaron and presided over worship to the Golden Calf. From this era the morality and grandeur of ancient Brahmanism degenerated. Brahmans still wrote beautiful poems, but with an obvious motive of connecting the newer gods with the older mythology. One of these, on Siva, is the work of Kalidasa, who is supposed to have lived B.C. 56.

At that period Vikramaditya reigned at Ougein, in Malwa, and invested his country with such brilliancy that he and his Court have never ceased to be a favourite theme with Sanskrit bards and dramatists. Nine poets are described as nine jewels sparkling around his throne, and amongst these jewels Kalidasa was pre-eminent. It is indeed possible that Vikramaditya's poets may, like King Arthur's knights, partake of a traditionary character, and have lived not all contemporary, but in successive centuries. But this does not disturb the main fact that, nearly coeval with the Christian era, Buddhism was subdued and its asceticism interrupted by the victorious career of a Hindu King who honoured Brahmanical literature and Brahmanical religion.

The poem alluded to above is entitled 'The Birth of the War-God.' It is incomplete, for it gives the history of

the War-God's father and mother, and their espousals, but finishes before his birth. The scene is in the mountains always spoken of as Siva's dwelling-place, and the poem opens with an allegorical description of Himalaya as a proud mountain-king with his diadem of snow, who

"Lifting high

His towery summits till they cleave the sky,

Spans the wide land from east to western sea,
Lord of the Hills, instinct with Deity."

Gems and gold and sparkling ores are described as the inherent riches of the realm, amongst whose wilds "the eager hunters roam, tracking the lion to his dreary home." Around its zone are dark shadows which the sylphs love :

Till the big rain-drops fright them from the plains
To those high peaks where sunshine ever reigns;
There birch-trees wave, that lend their friendly aid

To tell the passion of the love-born maid,

So quick to learn with metal tints to mark
Her hopes and fears upon the tender bark."*

In the caves and valleys winds resound, which are described as a glorious hymn led by Himalaya; and within the mossy caverns magic herbs pour forth a streaming light; whilst through the forests the wild kine roam with "tails outspread and bushy streaming hair."

Himalaya, thus rich and powerful, was the father of one lovely damsel whom he married to Siva, but Siva had not then apparently acquired importance; for Himalaya treated his son-in-law with scorn, and the "tender soul" of his daughter was so torn with anguish at seeing her

*

Specimens of Old Indian Poetry, by Ralph T. Griffiths, Birth of the War-God Kalidasa.'

husband contemned, that "her angered spirit left its mortal cell" in other words, she died; and from that moment Siva knew no love. Clad in a rude coat of skin, he lived for nought but prayer and solitary thought. His followers inhabited the clefts of the hills, their bodies tinted with mineral dyes, with mantles formed of the bark of trees, and red garlands twined around their hair. High up on the mountains, with only these companions, the mournful Siva dwelt.

"The holy Bull before his master's feet

Shook the hard-frozen earth with echoing beat;
And as he heard the lion's roaring swell
In distant anger from the rocky dell,

In angry pride he raised his voice of fear,

And from the mountain drove the startled deer.
Bright fire—a shape the God would sometimes wear,
Who takes eight various forms—was glowing there :
Then the great Deity who gives the prize

Of penance, prayer, and holy exercise,

As though to earn the meed he grants to man,
Himself the penance and the pain began."

Whilst Siva thus lived in stern seclusion, his lovely and lamented wife was born again, and was as before the daughter of Himalaya. She was more beautiful than ever, and her father could never "satisfy the thirsty glances of a parent's eye." She was decidedly a new existence with an individuality of her own, but—

"As herbs beneath the darksome shades of night
Collect again their scattered rays of light;

So dawned upon the maiden's waking mind
The far-off memory of her life resigned,
And all her former learning in its train,

Feelings and thoughts and knowledge came again.”