while, on the other, we cannot retain expressions which, if literally rendered in English, or any modern tongue, would have an air of quaintness or absurdity totally foreign to the intention of the ancient poets. There are, as all Vedic scholars know, whole verses which, as yet, yield no sense whatever. There are words the meaning of which we can only guess.'

In volume xlii we have a translation by Professor Maurice Bloomfield of the most characteristic Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, comprising but one third of the entire work. Professor Bloomfield, like Professor Max Müller and Dr Oldenberg, does not merely translate, but supplies a learned introduction and a copious commentary.

Singularly interesting are these specimens of the earliest religious conceptions and aspirations of the Indian branch of the Aryan race. There is an incommunicable charm, as of the breath of spring, or the prattle of childhood, about this literature, which appealed strongly, as might have been expected, to the delicate and sensitive intellect of Dean Church. He speaks tenderly of 'its natural freshness and comparative simplicity in its apparent effort really to recognise and express the mystery of what is seen in nature and believed beyond it'; and he acknowledges warmly 'our great debt to the scholars who have opened to us a glimpse of that primeval and mysterious world.' The common and prominent element in these Hymns,' he adds, is their sense of the greatness and wonder and mystery of external nature. The composers of them were profoundly impressed by the conviction that in its familiar but overpowering magnificence, and behind its screen, there was a living presence and power greater than itself, and its master, to which, though out of sight and beyond reach, men could have access . . . and what they so keenly felt, and so awfully acknowledged, they had attained an adequate instrument to body forth in words.' We can find room here for only one of these compositions -it is a very characteristic one-a Hymn to the Dawn, as translated by Max Müller :

'She shines on us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work. The fire had to be kindled by men; she brought light by striking down darkness.

'She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving towards every one. She grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant gar

ment. The mother of the cows (of the morning clouds), the leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold.

'She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the gods, who leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn, was seen, revealed by her rays, with brilliant treasures she follows every one.

'Thou who art a blessing where thou art near, drive far away the unfriendly; make the pastures wide, give us safety! Remove the haters, bring treasures! Raise up wealth to the worshipper, thou mighty Dawn.

'Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us food, who givest us wealth in cows, horses and chariots.

Thou, daughter of the Sky, thou high-born Dawn, whom the Vasishthas magnify with songs, give us riches high and wide: all ye gods, protect us always with your blessings.'

The second division of the Veda, representing a later stratum of religious thought than the Mantras, is the Brāhmanas, a translation of one of which, the SatapathaBrahmana, fills volumes xii, xxvi, xli, xliii, and xliv of the Sacred Books.' The Brahmanas are ritualistic precepts and illustrations, written in prose by Brahmins, chiefly as Directories in conducting the complicated sacrificial services which prevailed at the time of their composition. Unlike the Mantras, they are of no general interest. Professor Eggeling, to whom we owe the translation of the Satapatha-Brahmana before us, plaintively remarks: 'For wearisome prolixity of exposition, characterised by dogmatic assertions and a flimsy symbolism, rather than by serious reasoning, these works are perhaps not equalled anywhere.' Still they are of extreme value to the student as throwing a flood of light upon the religious condition of India, from, say, 800 B.C. to 500 B.C. How numerous sacrifices then were, is indicated by the fact that in no other language is there so large a proportion of words relating to them as in Sanskrit. Of course in the modern phase of Hinduism they have disappeared, except in the temples of the sanguinary goddess Kāli.

But the division of Vedic literature possessing widest and deepest interest is the Upanishads, some of the most important of which have been translated by Max Müller in volumes i and xv of the Sacred Books -a far more arduous task, we may observe, than the translation of

the Vedic Hymns, on account of the remoteness of Oriental metaphysics from European thought. Western philosophy -all that is worthy of the name of philosophy as distinguished from speculative physics-is essentially Hellenic. We are the intellectual offspring of Plato and Aristotle. But Hindu philosophy is cast in quite another mould. It is sui generis. Hence the extreme difficulty of translating certain of its technical terms into the tongues of the modern world. Take the word ātman, for example. No equivalent for it can be found in French. The only course for a translator of the Upanishads into that language is to retain the original, with an explanatory note. In English 'self' most nearly represents it, and has, very properly, been employed by Max Müller to translate it.

6

These singular treatises deserve far more than the passing mention which we can give them here. What the word 'upanishad' means has been much discussed. Some Hindu philosophers derive it from the root sad,' in the sense of destruction, because these holy writings destroy ignorance and passion; or in the sense of approaching, which the word also bears, because they bring a man near to Brahman. European scholars, more scientifically, if less picturesquely, take the word to mean 'session,' particularly a session of pupils at a respectful distance from their teacher; for the root 'sad' means also to sit.

The controversy is both interesting and significant.* Whatever may be the end of it, there can be no question that Max Müller is well warranted in saying, 'The Hindus in the Upanishads reached the loftiest heights of philosophy.' Schopenhauer-who, for a knowledge of them, was obliged to have recourse to the not always very intelligible Latin version made by Anquetil Duperron from a Persian translation-goes a great deal further in his admiration. He writes-we compress him a little-How is every one who, by diligent study, has become familiar with that incomparable work, stirred to the very depth of his soul! From every sentence deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and

* Professor Hopkins, in his learned work, 'The Great Epic of India' (p. 10), remarks that in the Mahābhārata 'the word has two distinct meanings: it means, on the one hand, mystery, secret wisdom, essential truth, But in other cases Upanishad is clearly a literary work, even standing in antithesis to the mysteries with which it is sometimes identical.

essence.

...

earnest spirit. How thoroughly is the mind here washed clean of all early engrafted Jewish superstitions, and of all philosophy that cringes before those superstitions! In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating. It has been the solace of my life; it will be the solace of my death.' And he predicts that 'Indian wisdom will flow back upon Europe and produce a thorough change in our knowing and thinking.' Whether or no that prediction will be accomplished, remains to be seen. But before we pass away from this subject there is one remark which we should like to make. It is sometimes claimed for Kant that he has laid bare the whole apparatus of our thought; that he has revealed for us the how of our knowledge; although, indeed, his doctrine on this matter was anticipated by Aquinas. He has shown that everything is represented to the senses through the mind, in what are called 'Vorstellungen ' intellectual representations-under those conditions of time and space which we cannot think away. Thus do we know things phenomenally. Now phenomena are pretty much what the Upanishads, or rather, a later school of philosophers, founding themselves on the Upanishads, call māyā-illusion. They are the appearances of things, not things in themselves. Can we get beyond phenomena ? Can we penetrate the veil of māyā? How Kant answered that question we need not here consider. The Hindu philosophers undertake to indicate the way in which man may find his true self (ātmàn), independent of all, and identical with the highest Self. And here we may fitly cite a few sentences from Max Müller::

"There is not what could be called a philosophical system in these Upanishads. They are, in the true sense of the word, guesses at truth, frequently contradicting each other, yet all tending in one direction. The keynote of the old Upanishads is "Know thy Self," but with a much deeper meaning than that of the Tvô σeauTóv of the Delphic oracle. The "Know thy Self" of the Upanishads means, know thy true Self, that which underlies thine Ego, and find it and know it in the highest, the eternal Self, the One without a Second, which underlies the whole world. This was the final solution of the search after the Infinite, the Invisible, the Unknown, the Divine, a search begun in the simplest hymns of the Veda,

and ended in the Upanishads, or, as they were afterwards called, the Vedanta, the end or the highest object of the Veda."

The kernel of the Vedanta philosophy-'the great sentence,' it is called-is 'tat tvam asi,' 'that art thou.' Thou, O neophyte, art thyself the Brahman whom thou seekest to know; thou thyself art a part of the All!

And now let us glance at the post-Vedic and less sacred literature (Smriti) translated in volumes ii, vii, viii, xiv, xxv, xxix, xxx, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxviii, and xlviii. The last three mentioned volumes are from the pen of M. Thibaut, and contain the Vedanta-Sutras-the word 'sūtra' means a string short aphorisms embodying, in their totality, a complete body of Vedanta philosophy, and presenting, to quote a dictum of Edgar Quinet, 'the most lofty and solemn affirmation of the rights of absolute being ever made in the world.' Volume viii contains a translation by a learned Hindu, Mr Telang, of the well-known Bhagavad-Gita, a poem characterised by Wilhelm von Humboldt as the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue'; and of two other Gitas. In volumes xxix and xxx Dr Oldenberg translates the Grihya-Sūtras, a manual of domestic religious rites. The rest of the volumes above enumerated are devoted to the law-books, of which unquestionably the most important—though the others are far from unimportant—is the compilation known as 'The Laws of Manu,' contained in volume xxv. To this we must devote a few lines.

'The Laws of Manu' is perhaps the work of highest authority in Smriti literature. It is a manual not merely of law but of religion and philosophy, and although, doubtless, at first merely a local collection, is now regarded throughout India with a reverence second only to that given to the Veda, upon which it is professedly based. The root of the law,' its supposed author declares, is the Veda and the traditions and customs of those who know the Veda.' We need hardly observe that the demarcation now generally prevailing between jurisprudence and religion was unknown to the antique world. Primitive law was a branch of primitive religion; or, if we like so to put the matter, religion was law in its highest