Loe raamatut: «Indian Myth and Legend», lehekülg 8
“When the gods, performing sacrifice, bound Purusha as a victim, there were seven sticks (stuck up) for it (around the fire).... With sacrifice the gods performed the sacrifice. These were the earliest rites.”139
“From his (Purusha's) navel arose the air, from his head the sky, from his ears the four quarters; in this manner (the gods) formed the worlds.” This conception resembles closely the story in Teutonic mythology of the cutting up by the gods of the body of the chaos giant Ymer; his skull became the sky, his bones the rocks, his blood the sea, and so on. One of the Chinese P'an Ku140 myths is of similar character; the world is composed of different parts of his body. The Babylonian Merodach also divided the body of the chaos demon, Tiawath or Tiamat; her head became the sky, her body the earth, and her blood the rivers which fill the sea. Purusha, the chaos giant of India, had “a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet”; the earth was equal to the space covered by ten of his fingers; he was “the whole universe”.
The horse sacrifice was also infused, like the human sacrifice, with symbolic significance. It was probably practised in the early Iranian period by the Aryan horse tamers, who may have substituted man's fleet-footed friend for human beings. The Mongolian Buriats in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, Siberia, are the latest surviving sacrificers of the domesticated animal. Their horse sacrifice (Tailgan) was held on 2 August on a sacred hill inhabited by their gods, the Burkans, “the masters”. The horse was bound, thrown upon its back and held tightly by ropes, while the officiating person cut open its breast and pulled out the pulsating heart like the sacrificers of human beings in Ancient Mexico. The animal's bones were burned on the altars, and the flesh was cooked and devoured by the worshippers. Portions of the flesh, and some of the broth prepared, were given to the flames, which also received libations of the liquor called tarasun, distilled from sour milk. Tarasun was the Soma of the Buriats, and their fire spirit was, like the Indian Agni, a ready drinker of it. Bits of food were also flung to aerial spirits, while oblations were poured on the hill, the belief prevailing that these offerings multiplied sufficiently to permit of the gods feeding sumptuously. As each of the worshippers of the spirits of nature accepted a portion of sacrificial food, a prayer was chanted, entreating the gods to cause increase of all things.
“Let our villages be one verst longer,” they said; “create cattle in our enclosures; under our blankets create a son; send down rain from high heaven to us; cause much grass to grow; create so much grain that the sickle cannot raise it, and so much grass that the scythe cannot cut it.”
After the sacrifice, the food was divided and the fragments that remained were carefully burned, “for none of it must be eaten by dogs; that would be desecration, and misfortune would follow in its wake”.141
The purpose of this annual sacrifice was evidently to secure fertility and prosperity generally, and we refer to it here so fully because of the light it throws on the Indian ceremonial which it resembles closely in some of its details.
There are two direct references to the horse sacrifice in the Rigveda.142 The animal is “covered with rich trappings” and led thrice round the altar. It is accompanied by a goat, which is killed first to “announce the sacrifice to the gods”. A goat was also slain at a burial to inform the gods that the soul was about to enter Heaven.
In the Story of Nala and in the Ramáyana, the horse sacrifice is performed to secure human offspring. A second Ramáyana horse sacrifice is offered as an atonement after the slaying of the demon Ravana. An elaborate account of this great ceremonial is also given in the Mahábhárata. It was performed after “the great war” on the advice of the sage Vyasa to atone for the slaying of kinsmen. The horse was let loose and an army followed it. Whichever country the animal entered had to be conquered for the owner of the horse, so that only a powerful monarch could fulfil the conditions of the sacrifice. A hundred such sacrifices might enable a king to depose Indra.
It is significant, however, that the animal was released to wander from kingdom to kingdom on the night of the full moon in the spring month of Choitro, and that it returned in the following year at the close of the winter season. When the ground was prepared by being ploughed by the king, the queen followed him, sowing the seeds of every kind of vegetable and curative herb which grew in the kingdom. A countless number of representative animals were sacrificed before the sacred horse was slain, the rain drum and trumpet were sounded, and the king and queen were drenched with holy water.
The flesh of the horse was cooked and eaten, and Indra and the other gods appeared and partook of their portions. Pieces were also flung in the fire, and the fire received also its meed of Soma. When the sacrifice was completed, the king divided the herb offerings among the people; what remained over was burned.
In the Mahábhárata a white horse is sacrificed, but in the Ramáyana a black victim is offered up. White horses were sacrificed to Mars by the Romans; the Greeks sacrificed white horses to the sun by throwing them in the sea; the Spartans offered up their horses, like the Buriats, on a hilltop.
There can be little doubt that the Greek and Roman horse sacrifices were also intended to ensure fertility. A horse was offered up to Diana at the August harvest festival, and we know that that popular goddess gave plentiful crops and was the guardian of flocks and herds and wild animals of the chase; she also presided at birth, and women invoked her aid. Virgins and youths took a prominent part at this harvest festival. The Roman horse sacrifice took place on 15 October. The animal was offered to Mars; the head was conveyed to the king's house143 and decorated with loaves, and the blood was preserved until April, when it was mixed by virgins with the blood of calves; this mixture was given to shepherds to ensure the increase of flocks which were fumigated. In the Mahábhárata the king and the princes stand for a time in the smoke belching from the altar, to be cleansed of their sins.
The Persians, and other peoples of Aryan speech and custom, sacrificed horses regularly. But the custom was not confined to Indo-Europeans. The Scythians,144 who were probably Mongols, not only offered horses to the Spirit of Fertility, but also, like the Buriats, to the dead. The Patagonians sacrificed horses to tree spirits. In this connection it may be noted that some European horse sacrifices took place in sacred groves; the Buriats tied their horse to a birch tree, which was carried to the mountain top and fixed to a stake; the Indian sacrificial posts were probably substitutes for trees.
In the Upanishads the sacrifice of the horse is infused, as we have indicated, with mystic symbolism. We read: “The dawn in truth is the head of the sacrificial horse. The sun is the eye; the wind the breath … the year the body, the heaven is the back … the constellations the bones; the sky the muscles; the rivers, arteries and veins; the liver and spleen, the mountains; the herbs and trees, the various kinds of hair.” The horse is also identified with the sun: “The sun, as long as he rises is the fore part of the body; the sun, as long as he descends is the hind part of the body, &c.” The horse is also day and night in turn, and its birthplace is the sea; it carries the gods and the Asuras; it is the symbol of Death, “who is voracity”, from whom all things came. “There was not anything here before.” Death first “created this mind, desiring, May I have a soul. He went forth worshipping. From him, when worshipping, the waters were produced.... The froth of the waters which was there became consistent. This became the earth.... He made himself threefold. His eastern quarter is the head … his western quarter is the tail, &c.”
The work of Creation proceeds, and then “he (Death as the Creator) resolved to devour all that he had created; for he eats all.... He is the eater of the whole universe; this whole universe is his food.”
After a year of purification the Creator slaughtered his horse body. “He gave up the animal to the gods. Therefore they (the gods) slaughter the purified animal, representing in its nature, as Prajápati, all deities. He (the Creator) is the Ashwameda145 who shines.”
The gods performed the sacrifice to overcome the demons, the representatives of sin. Therefore the horse sacrifice removes all sin.
After much fantastic symbolism the following lesson in the form of a mantra is extracted from the parable of Creation:—
“From the unreal lead me to the real, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality.”
The Upanishadic treatment of the Purusha myth differs somewhat from the Vedic, and is intended to strengthen the Monotheistic tendencies displayed in some of the hymns.
When the Universal soul, according to this later doctrine, took at the beginning “the shape of a man” … he “beheld nothing but himself”.
“He said first This, I am. Hence the name of ‘I’ was produced. Therefore, even now a man, when called, says first, ‘It is I’, and tells afterwards any other name that belongs to him. And, because He, as the first of all of them consumed by fire all the sins, therefore he is called Purusha....
He was afraid; therefore man, when alone, is afraid. He then looked round. Since nothing but myself exists, of whom should I be afraid? Hence his fear departed; for whom should he fear, since fear arises from another.
He did not feel delight. Therefore nobody, when alone, feels delight. He was desirous of a second. He was in the same state as husband (Pati) and wife (Patni).... He divided this self twofold. Hence were husband and wife produced. Therefore was this only a half of himself, as a split pea is of the whole.... This void is thus completed by woman. He approached her. Hence men were born.”
The first two “mortals” then assumed the forms of all creatures, male and female in turn. They were, in order, the first cattle, the first horses, the first asses, the first goats, the first sheep, and so on. “In this manner He created every living pair whatsoever down to the ants.” Then he reflected and said: “I am verily this creation, for I created this all.”
The lesson then follows. Men say, “Sacrifice to this, sacrifice to this, sacrifice to one or the other god?” But these words are “not proper”, because “He is really this creation; for he verily is all the gods”.
Thus the first Being, as a commentator remarked, “whose nature comprehended all elements, who is eternal, who is not conceived by thought, sprang forth by himself.... He consumed all sins, for unless one is in a worldly state he cannot consume sins.... Being mortal he created immortals.”146
From the myth of the chaos-giant Purusha we pass to the higher pantheistic conception of Brahmă, the soul of the Universe.
CHAPTER VI
Mysteries of Creation, the World's Ages, and Soul Wandering
The World Soul—Vedic Hymn of Creation—Brahmă the only Reality—Doctrine of the Upanishads—Creation Myths—The Chaos Egg in India and Egypt—Ancestor Worship—Celestial Rishis and Manus—Influence of Folk Religion—Imported Doctrines—The Yugas or Ages of the Universe—Ape God's Revelations—The Ages in Greek and Celtic Mythologies—Universal Destruction—A Deathless Sage—His Account of the Mysteries—Narayana the Creator and Destroyer—Transmigration of Souls—Beliefs in India, Egypt, Greece, and among the Celts.
Before the Vedic Age had come to a close an unknown poet, who was one of the world's great thinkers, had risen above the popular materialistic ideas concerning the hammer god and the humanized spirits of Nature, towards the conception of the World Soul and the First Cause—the “Unknown God”. He sang of the mysterious beginning of all things:
There was neither existence, nor non-existence,
The kingdom of air, nor the sky beyond.
What was there to contain, to cover in—
Was it but vast, unfathomed depths of water?
There was no death there, nor Immortality.
No sun was there, dividing day from night.
Then was there only that, resting within itself.
Apart from it, there was not anything.
At first within the darkness veiled in darkness,
Chaos unknowable, the All lay hid.
Till straightway from the formless void made manifest
By the great power of heat was born that germ.
Rigveda, x, 129 (Griffith's trans.).
The poet goes on to say that wise men had discovered in their hearts that the germ of Being existed in Not Being. But who, he asked, could tell how Being first originated? The gods came later, and are unable to reveal how Creation began. He who guards the Universe knows, or mayhap he does not know.
Other late Rigvedic poets summed up the eternal question regarding the Great Unknown in the interrogative pronoun “What?” (Ka). Men's minds were confronted by an inspiring and insoluble problem. In our own day the Agnostics say, “I do not know”; but this hackneyed phrase does not reflect the spirit of enquiry like the arresting “What?” of the pondering old forest hermits of ancient India.
The priests who systematized religious beliefs and practices in the Brahmanas identified “Ka” with Praja´pati, the Creator, and with Brahma, another name of the Creator.
In the Vedas the word “brahma” signifies “devotion” or “the highest religious knowledge”. Later Brahmă (neuter) was applied to the World Soul, the All in All, the primary substance from which all that exists has issued forth, the Eternal Being “of which all are phases”; Brahmă was the Universal Self, the Self in the various Vedic gods, the Self in man, bird, beast, and fish, the Life of Life, the only reality, the unchangeable. This one essence or Self (Atman) permeates the whole Universe. Brahmă is the invisible force in the seed, as he is the “vital spark” in mobile creatures. In the Khandogva Upanishad a young Brahman receives instruction from his father. The sage asks if his pupil has ever endeavoured to find out how he can hear what cannot be heard, how he can see what cannot be seen, and how he can know what cannot be known? He then asks for the fruit of the Nyagrodha tree.
“Here is one, sir.”
“Break it.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Not anything, sir.”
“My son,” said the father, “that subtile essence which you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists. Believe it, my son. That which is the subtile essence, in it all that exists has itself. It is the True. It is the Self; and thou, my son, art it.”
In Katha Upanishad a sage declares:
The whole universe trembles within the life (Brahmă); emanating from it (Brahmă) the universe moves on. It is a great fear, like an uplifted thunderbolt. Those who know it become immortal....
As one is reflected in a looking-glass, so the soul is in the body; as in a dream, so in the world of the forefathers; as in water, so in the world of the Gandharvas; as in a picture and in the sunshine, so in the world of Brahmă....
The soul's being (nature) is not placed in what is visible; none beholds it by the eye.... Through thinking it gets manifest Immortal become those who know it....
The soul is not to be gained by word, not by the mind, not by the eye, how could it be perceived by any other than him who declares it exists?
When all the desires cease that are cherished in his heart (intellect) then the mortal becomes immortal.
When all the bonds of the heart are broken in this life, then the mortal becomes immortal....147
The salvation of the soul is secured by union with Brahmă, the supreme and eternal Atman (Self), “the power which receives back to itself again all worlds.... The identity of the Brahmă and the Atman, of God and the Soul, is the fundamental thought of the entire doctrine of the Upanishads.”148
Various creation myths were framed by teachers to satisfy the desire for knowledge regarding the beginning of things. The divine incarnation of Brahmă is known as Brahma (masculine) Prajapati, and Nãrãyana.
In one account we read: “At first the Universe was not anything. There was neither sky, nor earth, nor air. Being non-existent it resolved, ‘Let me be’. It became fervent. From that fervour smoke was produced. It again became fervent. From that fervour fire was produced.” Afterwards the fire became “rays” and the rays condensed like a cloud, producing the sea. A magical formula (Dásahotri) was next created. “Prajapati is the Dásahotri.”
Eminently Brahmanic in character is the comment inserted here: “That man succeeds who, thus knowing the power of austere abstraction (or fervour), practises it.”
When Prajapati arose from the primordial waters he “wept, exclaiming, ‘For what purpose have I been born if (I have been born) from this which forms no support?…’ That (the tears) which fell into the water became the earth. That which he wiped away became the air. That which he wiped away, upwards, became the sky. From the circumstance that he wept (arodít), these two regions have the name of rodasí (worlds)....”
18
THE BIRTH OF BRAHMA: SPRINGING FROM A LOTUS ISSUING FROM VISHNU (see page 124)
From an original Indian painting
Prajapati afterwards created Asuras and cast off his body, which became darkness; he created men and cast off his body, which became moonlight; he created seasons and cast off his body, which became twilight; he created gods and cast off his body, which became day. The Asuras received milk in an earthen dish, men in a wooden dish, the seasons in a silver dish, and the gods were given Soma in a golden dish. In the end Prajapati created Death, “a devourer of creatures”.
“Mind (or soul, manas) was created from the non-existent”, adds a priestly commentator. “Mind created Prajapati. Prajapati created offspring. All this, whatever exists, rests absolutely on mind.”149
In another mythical account of Creation, Prajapati emerges, like the Egyptian Horus, from a lotus bloom floating on the primordial waters.
The most elaborate story of Creation is found in the Laws of Manu, the eponymous ancestor of mankind and the first lawgiver.
It relates that in the beginning the Self-Existent Being desired to create living creatures. He first created the waters, which he called “narah”, and then a seed; he flung the seed into the waters, and it became a golden egg which had the splendour of the sun. From the egg came forth Brahma, Father of All. Because Brahma came from the “waters”, and they were his first home or path (ayana), he is called Narayana.
The Egyptian sun god Ra similarly rose from the primordial waters as the sun-egg. Ptah came from the egg which, according to one myth, was laid by the chaos goose, and to another issued from the mouth of Khnumu.150 This conception may have had origin in the story of the giant of the folk tales who concealed his soul in the egg, in the tree, and in various animal forms. There are references in Indian literature to Brahma's tree, and Brahma is identified with Purusha, who became in turn a cow, a goat, a horse, &c., to produce living creatures.
In Manu's account of Creation we meet for the first time with the Maha-rishis or Deva-rishis, the Celestial priest poets. These are the mind-born sons of Brahma, who came into existence before the gods and the demons. Indeed, they are credited with some acts of creation. The seven or fourteen Manus were also created at the beginning. Originally there was but a single Manu, “the father of men”.
The inclusion of the Rishis and the Manus among the deities is a late development of orthodox Brahmanism. They appear to represent the Fathers (Pitris) who were adored by ancestor worshippers. The tribal patriarch Bhrigu, for instance, was a Celestial Rishi.
It must be borne in mind that more than one current of thought was operating during the course of the centuries, and over a wide area, in shaping the complex religion which culminated in modern Hinduism. The history of Hinduism is the history of a continual struggle between the devotees of folk religion and the expounders of the Forest Books produced by the speculative sages who, in their quest for Truth, used primitive myths to illustrate profound doctrinal teachings. By the common people these myths were given literal interpretation. Among the priests there were also “schools of thought”. One class of Brahmans, it has been alleged, was concerned chiefly regarding ritual, the mercenary results of their teachings, and the achievement of political power: men of this type appear to have been too ready to effect compromises by making concession to popular opinion.
Just as the Atharva-veda came into existence as a book after the Rigveda had been compiled, so did many traditional beliefs of animistic character receive recognition by Brahmanic “schools” after the period of the early Upanishads. It may be, however, that we should also recognize in these “innovations” the influence of races which imported their own modes of thought, or of Aryan tribes that had been in contact for long periods with other civilizations known and unknown.
In endeavouring to trace the sources of foreign influences, we should not always expect to find clues in the mythologies of great civilizations like Babylonia, Assyria, or Egypt alone. The example of the Hebrews, a people who never invented anything, and yet produced the greatest sacred literature of the world, is highly suggestive in this connection. It is possible that an intellectual influence was exercised in early times over great conquering races by humble forgotten peoples whose artifacts give no indication of their mental activity.
In Indian Aryan mythology we are suddenly confronted at a comparatively late period, at any rate some time after tribal settlements were effected all over Hindustan from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, with fully developed conceptions regarding the World's Ages and Transmigration of Souls, which, it is quite evident, did not originate after the Aryan conquest of Hindustan. Both doctrines can be traced in Greek and Celtic (Irish) mythologies, but they are absent from Teutonic mythology. From what centre and what race they originally emanated we are unable to discover. The problem presented is a familiar one. At the beginnings of all ancient religious systems and great civilizations we catch glimpses of unknown and vanishing peoples who had sowed the seeds for the harvests which their conquerors reaped in season.
The World's Ages are the “Yugas” of Brahmanism. “Of this elaborate system … no traces are found in the hymns of the Rigveda. Their authors were, indeed, familiar with the word ‘yuga’, which frequently occurs in the sense of age, generation, or tribe.... The first passage of the Rigveda in which there is any indication of a considerable mundane period being noted is where ‘a first’ or an earlier age (yuga) of the gods is mentioned when ‘the existent sprang from the non-existent’.... In one verse of the Atharva-veda, however, the word ‘yuga’ is so employed as to lead to the supposition that a period of very long duration is intended. It is there said: ‘We allot to thee a hundred, ten thousand years, two, three, four ages (yugas)’.”151
Professor Muir traced references in the Brahmanas to the belief in “Yugas” as “Ages”, but showed that these were isolated ideas with which, however, the authors of these books were becoming familiar.
When the system of Yugas was developed by the Indian priestly mathematicians, the result was as follows:—
One year of mortals is equal to one day of the gods. 12,000 divine years are equal to a period of four Yugas, which is thus made up, viz.:
These 12,000 divine years equal 4,320,000 years of mortals, each human year being composed of 360 days. A thousand of these periods of 4,320,000 years equals one day (Kalpa) of Brahma. During “the day of Brahma” fourteen Manus reign: each Manu period is a Manvantara. A year of Brahma is composed of 360 Kalpas, and he endures for 100 of these years. One half of Brahma's existence has now expired.
At the end of each “day” (Kalpa) Brahma sleeps for a night of equal length, and before falling asleep the Universe becomes water as at the beginning. He creates anew when he wakes on the morning of the next Kalpa.152
One of the most interesting accounts of the Yugas is given in the Mahábhárata. It is embedded in a narrative which reflects a phase of the character of that great epic.
Bhima of the Pan´davas, the human son of the wind god Vayu, once went forth to obtain for his beloved queen the flowers of Paradise—those Celestial lotuses of a thousand petals with sun-like splendour and unearthly fragrance, which prolong life and renew beauty: they grow in the demon-guarded woodland lake in the region of Kuvera, god of treasure. Bhima hastened towards the north-east, facing the wind, armed with a golden bow and snake-like arrows; like an angry lion he went, nor ever felt weary. Having climbed a great mountain he entered a forest which is the haunt of demons, and he saw stately and beautiful trees, blossoming creepers, flowers of various hues, and birds with gorgeous plumage. A soft wind blew in his face; it was anointed with the perfume of Celestial lotus; it was as refreshing as the touch of a father's hand. Beautiful was that sacred retreat. The great clouds spread out like wings and the mountain seemed to dance; shining streams adorned it like to a necklace of pearls.
Bhima went speedily through the forest; stags, with grass in their mouths, looked up at him unafraid; invisible Yakshas and Gandharvas watched him as he went on swifter than the wind, and ever wondering how he could obtain the flowers of Paradise without delay....
At length he hastened like to a hurricane, making the earth tremble under his feet, and lions and tigers and elephants and bears arose and took flight from before him. Terrible was then the roaring of Bhima. Birds fluttered terror-stricken and flew away; in confusion arose the geese and the ducks and the herons and the kokilas....153 Bhima tore down branches; he struck trees and overthrew them; he smote and slew elephants and lions and tigers that crossed his path. He blew on his war-shell and the heavens trembled; the forest was stricken with fear; mountain caves echoed the clamour; elephants trumpeted in terror and lions howled dismally.
The ape god Hanuman154 was awakened; drowsily he yawned and he lashed his long tail with tempest fury until it stretched forth like a mighty pole and obstructed the path of Bhima. Thus the ape god, who was also a son of Vayu, the wind, made Bhima to pause. Opening his red sleepy eyes, he said: “Sick am I, but I was slumbering sweetly; why hast thou awakened me so rudely? Whither art thou going? Yonder mountains are closed against thee: thou art treading the path of the gods. Therefore pause and repose here: do not hasten to destruction.”
Said Bhima: “Who art thou? I am a Kshatriya, the son of Vayu.... Arise and let me pass, or else thou wilt perish.”
Hanuman said: “I am sickly and cannot move; leap over me.”
19
HANUMAN
From a bronze in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Said Bhima: “I cannot leap over thee. It is forbidden by the Supreme Soul, else would I bound as Hanuman bounded over the ocean, for I am his brother.”
Hanuman said: “Then move my tail and go past.”
Then Bhima endeavoured to lift the tail of the ape god, but failed, and he said: “Who art thou that hath assumed the form of an ape; art thou a god, or a spirit, or a demon?”
Hanuman said: “I am the son of Vayu, even Hanuman. Thou art my elder brother.”
Said Bhima: “I would fain behold the incomparable form thou didst assume to leap over the ocean.”
Hanuman said: “At that Age the universe was not as it is now. Thou canst not behold the form I erstwhile had.... In Krita Yuga there was one state of things and in the Treta Yuga another; greater change came with Dwãpara Yuga, and in the present Yuga there is lessening, and I am not what I have been. The gods, the saints, and all things that are have changed. I have conformed with the tendency of the present age and the influence of Time.”
Said Bhima: “I would fain learn of thee regarding the various Yugas. Speak and tell what thou dost know, O Hanuman.”
The ape god then spake and said: “The Krita Yuga (Perfect Age) was so named because there was but one religion, and all men were saintly: therefore they were not required to perform religious ceremonies. Holiness never grew less, and the people did not decrease. There were no gods in the Krita Yuga, and there were no demons or Yakshas, and no Rakshasas or Nagas. Men neither bought nor sold; there were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires. The Krita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred, or vanity, or evil thought whatsoever; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. The universal soul was Narayana: he was White; he was the refuge of all and was sought for by all; the identification of self with the universal soul was the whole religion of the Perfect Age.
“In the Treta Yuga sacrifices began, and the World Soul became Red; virtue lessened a quarter. Mankind sought truth and performed religious ceremonies; they obtained what they desired by giving and by doing.
“In the Dwãpara Yuga the aspect of the World Soul was Yellow: religion lessened one-half. The Veda, which was one (the Rigveda) in the Krita Yuga, was divided into four parts, and although some had knowledge of the four Vedas, others knew but three or one. Mind lessened, Truth declined, and there came desire and diseases and calamities; because of these men had to undergo penances. It was a decadent Age by reason of the prevalence of sin.
