Thoth notes the result on a tablet, and the deceased advances with it to the foot of the throne on which sits Osiris, lord of the dead, king of Amenthe. He pronounces the decisive sentence, and his assistants see that it is at once executed. The condemned soul is either scourged back to the earth straightway, to live again in the form of a vile animal,—as some of the emblems appear to denote;-or plunged into the tortures of a horrid hell of fire and devils below,-as numerous engravings set forth;— or driven into the atmosphere, to be vexed and tossed by tempests, violently whirled in blasts and clouds, till its sins are expiated, and another probation granted through a renewed existence in human form. We have two accounts of the Egyptian divisions of the universe. According to the first view, they conceived the creation to consist of three grand departments. First came the earth, or zone of trial, where men live on probation. Next was the atmosphere, or zone of temporal punishment, where souls are afflicted for their sins. The ruler of this girdle of storms was Pooh, the overseer of souls in penance. Such a notion is found in some of the later Greek philosophers, and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jews, who undoubtedly drew it from the priestly science of Egypt. Every one will recollect how Paul speaks of "the prince of the power of the air." And Shakspeare makes the timid Claudio shrink from the verge of death with horror, lest his soul should, through ages, "Be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about After their purgation in this region, all the souls live again on earth by transmigration.18 The third realm was in the serene blue sky among the stars, the zone of blessedness, where the accepted dwell in immortal peace and joy. Eusebius says, "The Egyptians represented the universe by two circles, one within the other, and a serpent with the head of a hawk twining his folds around them," thus forming three spheres, earth, firmament, divinity. But the representation most frequent and imposing is that which pictures the creation simply as having the earth in the centre, and the sun with his attendants as circulating around it in the brightness of the superior, and the darkness of the infernal, firmament. Souls at death pass down through the west into Amenthe, and are tried. If condemned, they are either sent back to the earth, or confined in the nether space for punishment. If justified, they join the blissful company of the SunGod, and rise with him through the east to journey along his celestial course. The upper hemisphere is divided into twelve equal parts, corresponding with the twelve hours of the day. At the gate of each of these golden segments a sentinel god is stationed, to whom the newlyarriving soul must give its credentials to secure a passage. In like 18 Liber Metempsychosis Veterum Ægyptiorum, edited and translated into Latin from the funeral papyri by H. Brugsch. manner, the lower hemisphere is cut into the same number of gloomy sections, corresponding with the twelve hours of the night. Daily the chief divinity, in robes of light, traverses the beaming zones of the blessed, where they hunt and fish, or plough and sow, reap and gather, in the Fields of the Sun on the banks of the heavenly Nile. Nightly, arrayed in deep black from head to foot, he traverses the dismal zones of the damned, where they undergo appropriate retributions. Thus the future destiny of man was sublimely associated with the march of the sun through the upper and lower hemispheres.19 Astronomy was a part of the Egyptian's theology. He regarded the stars not figuratively, but literally, as spirits and pure genii; the great planets as deities. The calendar was a religious chart, each month, week, day, hour, being the special charge and stand-point of a god.20 There was much poetic beauty and ethical power in these doctrines and symbols. The necessity of virtue, the dread ordeals of the grave, the certainty of retribution, the mystic circuits of transmigration, a glorious immortality, the paths of planets and gods and souls through creation, all were impressively enounced, dramatically shown. "The Egyptain soul sail'd o'er the skyey sea Where, in their nebulous shoals, they shore the void And, in the heavenly Hades, hall of God, This solemn linking of the fate of man with the astronomic universe, this grand blending of the deepest of moral doctrines with the most august of physical sciences, plainly betrays the brain and hand of that hereditary hierarchy whose wisdom was the wonder of the ancient world. Osburn thinks the localization of Amenthe in the west may have arisen in the following way. Some superstitious Egyptians, travelling westwards, at twilight, on the great marshes haunted by the strange gray-white ibis, saw troops of these silent, solemn, ghostlike birds, motionless or slow stalking, and conceived them to be souls waiting for the funeral rites to be paid, that they might sink with the setting sun to their destined abode."1 complex and elaborate to have But that it was really held by Parts of it were publicly enacted That such a system of belief was too been a popular development is evident. the people there is no room to doubt. on festival-days by multitudes numbering more than a hundred thousand. Parts of it were dimly shadowed out in the secret recesses of temples, surrounded by the most astonishing accompaniments that un 19 L'Univers, Égypte Ancienne, par Champollion-Figeac, pp. 123–145. 20 Egyptische Glaubenslehre von Dr. Ed. Röth, ss. 171, 174. 21 Monumental History of Egypt, vol. i. ch. 8. rivalled learning, skill, wealth, and power could contrive. Its authority commanded the allegiance, its charm fascinated the imagination, of the people. Its force built the pyramids, and enshrined whole generations of Egypt's embalmed population in richly-adorned sepulchres of everlasting rock. Its substance of esoteric knowledge and faith, in its form of exoteric imposture and exhibition, gave it vitality and endurance long. In the vortex of change and decay it sank at last. And now it is only after its secrets have been buried for thirty centuries that the exploring genius of modern times has brought its hidden hieroglyphics to light, and taught us what were the doctrines originally contained in the altar-lore of those priestly schools which once dotted the plains of the Delta and studded the banks of eldest Nile, where now, disfigured and gigantic, the solemn "Old Syhinxes lift their countenances bland CHAPTER VI. BRAHMANIC AND BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. In the Hindu views of the fate of the human soul, metaphysical subtlety and imaginative vastness, intellect and fancy, slavish tradition and audacious speculation, besotted ritualism and heaven-storming spirituality, are mingled together on a scale of grandeur and intensity wholly without a parallel elsewhere in the literature or faith of the world. Brahmanism, with its hundred million adherents holding sway over India,-and Buddhism, with its four hundred million disciples scattered over a dozen nations, from Java to Japan, and from the Ceylonese to the Samoyedes, -practically considered, in reference to their actually-received dogmas and aims pertaining to a future life, agree sufficiently to warrant us in giving them a general examination together. The chief difference between them will be explained in the sequel. The most ancient Hindu doctrine of the future fate of man, as given in the Vedas, was simple, rude, and very unlike the forms in which it has since prevailed. Professor Wilson says, in the introduction to his translation of the Rig Veda, that the references to this subject in the primeval Sanscrit scriptures are sparse and incomplete. But no one has so thoroughly elucidated this obscure question as Roth of Tübingen, in his masterly paper on the Morality of the Vedas, of which there is a translation, by Professor Whitney, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society.' The results of his researches may be stated in few words. When a man dies, the earth is invoked to wrap his body up, as a mother wraps her child in her garment, and to lie lightly on him. He himself is addressed thus:-"Go forth, go, forth on the ancient paths which our fathers in old times have trodden: the two rulers in bliss, ⚫ Yama and Varuna, shalt thou behold." Varuna judges all. He thrusts the wicked down into darkness; and not a hint or clew further of their doom is furnished. They were supposed either to be annihilated, as Professor Roth thinks the Vedas imply, or else to live as demons, in sin, blackness, and woe. The good go up to heaven and are glorified with a shining spiritual body like that of the gods. Yama, the first man, originator of the human race on earth, is the beginner and head of renewed humanity in another world, and is termed the Assembler of Men. It is a poetic and grand conception that the first one who died, leading the way, should be the patriarch and monarch of all who follow. The old Vedic hymns imply that the departed good are in a state of exalted felicity, but scarcely picture forth any particulars. The following passage, versified with strict fidelity to the original, is as full and explicit as any : Where glory never-fading is, where is the world of heavenly light, The world of immortality,-the everlasting,-set me there! Where Yama reigns, Vivasvat's son, in the inmost sphere of heaven bright, But this form of doctrine long ago passed from the Hindu remembrance, lost in the multiplying developments and specifications of a mystical philosophy, and a teeming superstition nourished by an unbounded imagination. Both Brahmans and Buddhists conceive of the creation on the most enormous scale. Mount Meru rises from the centre of the earth to the height of about two millions of miles. On its summit is the city of Brahma, covering a space of fourteen thousand leagues, and surrounded by the stately cities of the regents of the spheres. Between Meru and the wall of stone forming the extreme circumference of the earth are seven concentric circles of rocks. Between these rocky bracelets are continents and seas. In some of the seas wallow single fishes thousands of miles in every dimension. The celestial spaces are occupied by a large number of heavens, called "dewa-lokas," increasing in the glory and bliss of their prerogatives. The worlds below the earth are hells, called "naraka." The description of twenty-eight of these, given in the Vishnu Purana,2 makes the reader "sup full of horrors." The Buddhist 1 Vol iii. pp. 342–346. 2 Wilson's trans. pp. 207-209. "Books of Ceylon" tell of twenty-six heavens placed in regular order above one another in the sky, crowded with all imaginable delights. They also depict, in the abyss underneath the earth, eight great hells, each containing sixteen smaller ones, the whole one hundred and thirtysix composing one gigantic hell. The eight chief hells are situated over one another, each partially enclosing and overlapping that next beneath; and the sufferings inflicted on their unfortunate occupants are of the most terrific character. But these poor hints at the local apparatus of reward and punishment afford no conception whatever of the extent of their mythological scheme of the universe. They call each complete solar system a sakwala, and say that, if a wall were erected around the space occupied by a million millions of sakwalas, reaching to the highest heaven, and the entire space were filled with mustard-seeds, a god might take these seeds, and, looking towards any one of the cardinal points, throw a single seed towards each sakwala until all the seeds were gone, and still there would be more sakwalas, in the same direction, to which no seed had been thrown, without considering those in the other three quarters of the heavens. In comparison with this Eastern vision of the infinitude of worlds, the wildest Western dreamer over the vistas opened by the telescope may hide his diminished head! Their other conceptions are of the same crushing magnitude, Thus, when the demons, on a certain occasion, assailed the gods, Siva-using the Himalaya range for his bow, Vasuke for the string, Vishnu for his arrow, the earth for his chariot with the sun and moon for its wheels and the Vedas for its horses, the starry canopy for his banner with the tree of Paradise for its staff, Brahma for his charioteer, and the mysterious monosyllable Om for his whip-reduced them all to ashes.1 The five hundred million Brahmanic and Buddhist believers hold that all the gods, men, demons, and various grades of animal life occupying this immeasurable array of worlds compose one cosmic family. The totality of animated beings, from a detestable gnat to thundering Indra, from the meanest worm to the supreme Buddha, constitute one fraternal race, by the unavoidable effects of the law of retribution constantly interchanging their residences in a succession of rising and sinking existences, ranging through all the earths, heavens, and hells of the universe, bound by the terrible links of merit and demerit in the phantasmagoric dungeon of births and deaths. The Vishnu Purana declares, "The universe, this whole egg of Brahma, is everywhere swarming with living creatures, all of whom are captives in the chains of acts." The one prime postulate of these Oriental faiths-the ground-principle, never to be questioned any more than the central and stationary position of the earth in the Ptolemaic system—is that all beings below the Infinite One are confined in the circle of existence, the whirl of * Upham's trans. vol. iii. pp. 8, 66, 159. 4 Vans Kennedy, Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 429. 5 P. 286. |