DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0061
INTRODUCTION.
39
They only record the existence of men who attained greatness hy the
practice of virtue, and immortality by teaching the ways of God to
man. The Vaishnavas brought God to earth, to mix and interfere in
mundane affairs in a manner that neither the Aryan nor the Buddhist
ever dreamt of, and so degraded the purer religion of India into the
monstrous system of idolatry that now prevails in that country.
No attempt, so far as I know, has been made to explain the origin
of the Saiva religion, or even to ascertain whether it was a purely local
superstition, or whether it was imported from abroad. The earliest
authentic written allusion to it seems to be tliat of the Indian ambas-
sador to Bardasanes (a.d. 2is, '!■>•>], who described a cave in the north
of India which contained an image of a god, half-man, half-woman.1
This is beyond doubt the Ardhanari form of Siva, so familiar after-
wards at Elephanta and in every part of India. The earliest engraved
representations of this god seem to be those on the coins of Kadphises
(b.c. 80 to 1002), where the figure with the trident and the Bull
certainly prefigure the principal personage in this religion. Curiously
enough, however, he or she is always accompanied by the Buddhist
trisul emblem, as if the king, or his subjects at least, simultaneously
professed both religions. Besides all this, it seems now tolerably
well ascertained, that the practice of endowing gods with an infinity
of limbs took an earlier, certainly a greater development in Thibet
and the trans-Himalayan countries than in India, and that the wildest
Tantric forms of Durga are more common and more developed in
Nepal and Thibet than they are even in India Proper. If this is so,
it seems pretty clear, as the evidence now stands, that Saivism is a
northern superstition introduced into India by the Yuechi or some of
the northern hordes who migrated into India, either immediately
before the Christian Era, or in the early centuries succeeding it.
It does not seem at first to have made much progress in the valley
of the Ganges, where the ground was preoccupied by the Vaishnava
group* but to have been generally adopted in Bajputana, especially
among the Jats, who were almost certainly the descendants of the
White Huns or Ephthalites, and it seems also to have been early
curried south by the BrahmanB, when they undertook to instruct the
Dravidians in the religion of the Puranas. That of the Vedas never
seems to have been known in the south, and it was not till after
the Vedas had been superseded by the new system, that the Brah-
maiiical religion was introduced among the southern people. It is
also, it is to be feared, only too true that no attempt has yet been
made to ascertain what the religion of the Dravidians was before the
1 Stobaeus, ' Pliysica,' Gaisford's
edition, ]>. 54. See also Priaulx, ' India
and Rome,' p. 153.
" Wilson's 'Aiiana Antiqua,' plates
10, 11.
39
They only record the existence of men who attained greatness hy the
practice of virtue, and immortality by teaching the ways of God to
man. The Vaishnavas brought God to earth, to mix and interfere in
mundane affairs in a manner that neither the Aryan nor the Buddhist
ever dreamt of, and so degraded the purer religion of India into the
monstrous system of idolatry that now prevails in that country.
No attempt, so far as I know, has been made to explain the origin
of the Saiva religion, or even to ascertain whether it was a purely local
superstition, or whether it was imported from abroad. The earliest
authentic written allusion to it seems to be tliat of the Indian ambas-
sador to Bardasanes (a.d. 2is, '!■>•>], who described a cave in the north
of India which contained an image of a god, half-man, half-woman.1
This is beyond doubt the Ardhanari form of Siva, so familiar after-
wards at Elephanta and in every part of India. The earliest engraved
representations of this god seem to be those on the coins of Kadphises
(b.c. 80 to 1002), where the figure with the trident and the Bull
certainly prefigure the principal personage in this religion. Curiously
enough, however, he or she is always accompanied by the Buddhist
trisul emblem, as if the king, or his subjects at least, simultaneously
professed both religions. Besides all this, it seems now tolerably
well ascertained, that the practice of endowing gods with an infinity
of limbs took an earlier, certainly a greater development in Thibet
and the trans-Himalayan countries than in India, and that the wildest
Tantric forms of Durga are more common and more developed in
Nepal and Thibet than they are even in India Proper. If this is so,
it seems pretty clear, as the evidence now stands, that Saivism is a
northern superstition introduced into India by the Yuechi or some of
the northern hordes who migrated into India, either immediately
before the Christian Era, or in the early centuries succeeding it.
It does not seem at first to have made much progress in the valley
of the Ganges, where the ground was preoccupied by the Vaishnava
group* but to have been generally adopted in Bajputana, especially
among the Jats, who were almost certainly the descendants of the
White Huns or Ephthalites, and it seems also to have been early
curried south by the BrahmanB, when they undertook to instruct the
Dravidians in the religion of the Puranas. That of the Vedas never
seems to have been known in the south, and it was not till after
the Vedas had been superseded by the new system, that the Brah-
maiiical religion was introduced among the southern people. It is
also, it is to be feared, only too true that no attempt has yet been
made to ascertain what the religion of the Dravidians was before the
1 Stobaeus, ' Pliysica,' Gaisford's
edition, ]>. 54. See also Priaulx, ' India
and Rome,' p. 153.
" Wilson's 'Aiiana Antiqua,' plates
10, 11.