The Indian Way: An Introduction to the

Philosophies & Religions of India ■

Ebook PDF Version
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-indian-way-an-introduction-to-the-philosophies-rel
igions-of-india-ebook-pdf-version/
 1

Introduction:
Diversity, Change,
and Continuity

mages of India are diverse and contrasting. On the one hand, India is seen in
I terms of wise and compassionate world leaders, helping to devise the U.N. char-
ter, holding Oxford appointments, winning Nobel prizes in science or literature, or
directing multinational companies. The names of Nehru, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan,
Tagore, Bose, and Birla come readily to mind. Others think of India in terms of yo-
gins and fakirs, half-starved ascetics and naked sadhus. In medieval times the pre-
vailing image was that of an exotic land of fabulous wealth. Today many people
think of India as the home of one billion people crushed together in poverty. But
others see thrifty, hard-working people successfully engaged in agriculture and
commerce. Still, the image of a dreamy people, denying the reality of this world,
longing only for relief from life itself, persists. And while some think of India’s
great humanistic creations in religion and philosophy—the systems of Jainism and
Buddhism, for example—others see only a plurality of deities worshipped in every
conceivable way. Those who know something about Indian history point proudly
to her wonderful accomplishments in astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and mathe-
matics, noting that the base ten number system and the zero, which made possible
a revolution in mathematics, are India’s gift to the world.
Which is the real India? Actually, all these images—plus many other contrast-
ing ones—capture something of the real India. Despite a common, but mistaken,
impression that change has bypassed India, that she has remained committed to the

1
2 Chapter 1

same ancient and unchanging ideas and practices for thousands of years, the truth is
that her history is one of amazing diversity and continuous change.

DIVERSITY

India’s diversity begins with her geography, for it is undeniable that diverse geo-
graphical conditions contribute to cultural diversity. As every traveler quickly real-
izes, the Indian subcontinent, including the modern nations of Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, and India—is a land of many different climates and land types. In the
North stretches the great Himalayan mountain chain, interrupting the cloud
movements and causing the monsoon rains to fall on the hot and parched lands ex-
tending from the foothills all the way down into central and southern India. Except
for the coastal regions, all of India depends upon these monsoon rains for the water
of life. In Bengal, north to Assam, rainfall may measure between 60 and 200 inches
a year, bringing annual threats of floods as well as the promise of lush growth. But
in the West, rainfall may be less than 10 inches per year, creating large tracts of
desert. The South is tropical, with very modest seasonal changes, but in the North
the winters are bitterly cold and the summer temperatures frequently exceed
110°F. The Indus and Ganges valleys are rich, relatively flat, usually well-watered,
agricultural lands, but the central plateau is hilly and rocky, land from which it is
difficult to wrest a living even when the climate is favorable. It may well be that no
one cultural region in the world has greater diversity of land and climate than does
the subcontinent.
A second important source of diversity is linguistic, for India is the home of
more than a hundred different languages, with fourteen major languages and four
basic language families that are totally unrelated to each other. The ten major lan-
guages of the North are all rooted in a Sanskritic base. They have practically noth-
ing in common with the four major languages of the South that belong to the
Dravidic family and that may predate the Sanskrit-based languages. There are also
ancient Sino-Tibetan languages, the Munda languages, and a number of unwritten
tribal languages that are probably older still and that continue to be used to this
day. Because language and culture are so closely related, it is not surprising that
North and South India continue to exhibit great cultural differences, contributing
to a rich diversity of Indian ways of thought and practice.
Foreign influences through migrations, conquests, and trade are a third
source of change and diversity. Evidence from Indus sites reveals that four thou-
sand years ago India was already a meeting place of races—a fact revealed to every
traveler by the racial intermixture of today’s population. Negroid, Mongolian,
Mediterranean, Proto-Australoid, Alpine, and Armenoid racial types were all liv-
ing in the Indus region four thousand years ago. It is only natural that these differ-
ent races would also represent cultural differences and that different ideas and
ways of living would have come into contact with and influenced each other, mak-
ing ancient India a dynamic and vibrant society of great diversity.
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 3

But India’s diversity goes back to a much more remote past. Archaeological
evidence reveals human settlements on the subcontinent more than 200,000 years
ago, and the tools these early inhabitants of India left behind reveal at least two
quite distinct cultures. The people of the North used the stone flakes they chipped
for their tools and weapons and threw away the cores. In the South the stones cores
prepared by chipping away the unwanted exterior portions were saved as tools and
weapons and the flakes were discarded. This great cultural difference between
North and South is also attested to by the totally different linguistical families that
survive to this day and by significant cultural differences between them.
Pygmy tools, resembling those found in France, England, and East Africa,
dating from around 30,000 B.C.E., suggest postglacial migration from Europe to the
central portions of the subcontinent around this time, adding to the existing diver-
sity and stimulating further change.
Stimulation from interaction with foreign cultures has continued right up to
modern times. We are all aware of the Western—especially British—influence of
the last two hundred years. However, for seven hundred years before the Euro-
peans made their presence felt in India, the Muslims ruled most of the subconti-
nent, bringing one of the world’s great medieval civilizations into the mainstream
of Indian life. But these are only two chapters in a long history of foreign influence.
More than two thousand years before the British came to India, sometime to-
ward the end of the sixth century B.C.E., Darius I conquered the Indus Valley, bring-
ing Persian civilization to the northwestern portion of India. When Alexander the
Great defeated the Persians, just two centuries later, the Greeks moved into this
area. Although they were “Indianized” to a greater extent than were the Indians
Hellenized, their influence is clearly seen in the Gandhara art style and in coinage.
Later, during the Roman unification, Greco-Roman influence was felt along
the coastal areas, for there was extensive trade with South India. One source tells us
that more than 120 ships sailed to India’s southern coast every year from Egypt
alone, and Tamil poets refer to the endless prosperity of the foreigners bringing
their wealth and wine to trade for Indian spices, gems, silks, cottons, and perfumed
wood. Indeed, the present-day Christians and Jews of South India trace their be-
ginnings in India to the early days of this trade.
That Indian silks were available for export to Rome is due to earlier contact
between China and India, for the silk industry was imported from China. Two
thousand years ago trade with China was extensive, a source of contact and interac-
tion frequently overlooked. Also frequently overlooked is the extensive influence
that India wielded in the East Indies and Southeast Asia—which for a long period
resembled economic and cultural colonies of India more than anything else.
Central Asia also played a significant role in Indian history, as the Parthians
(called Pahlavas in India) gained control of Persia early in the second century B.C.E.
and took control of northwestern India within a few years of King Menander’s
death in about 130 B.C.E. Parthians were followed by Scythians, better known in
India as Sakas, who ruled a large part of India for about a hundred years, only to be
replaced by the Yueh-chi tribes known as Kushans. The best known Kushan ruler
was Kaniska, a generous patron of Buddhism, who was won over by Indian culture
4 Chapter 1

in general, and by Buddhism in particular. The Sakas, pushed South and West by
the Kushans, eventually found a home in Western India, becoming the primary
stock of the present-day Marathas, adopting a majority of Indian ideas and prac-
tices, including their places within the caste system.
This pattern of contact through trade in the South and contact through con-
quest in the Northwest continued over the centuries, with the rule of great king-
doms lasting less than a hundred years on average and sometimes changing hands
three or four times within a century. When Islam came in the eighth century it fol-
lowed the age-old pattern, arriving via trading ships in the South and with the con-
queror’s sword in the North.
Granted such extensive political change, significant intercultural contacts
and great racial, linguistic, and geographical diversities, what is surprising is not
that Indian culture was constantly changing, but that it was able to maintain its
continuity at all through these changes and in spite of this amazing diversity. This
continuity is a testament to the power of the great ideas in cultural life that consti-
tute the basis of the Indian way.
But these ideas do not fit into a monolithic and unchanging pattern by any
means. India’s political, linguistic, geographical, and racial diversities are matched
by the diversity of her thought. Some Indian philosophers are materialists, others
idealists; some are monists, others dualists or pluralists; some emphasize empirical
knowledge, others meditational insight. While Ajıvikas denied human freedom
completely, emphasizing the totally determined nature of the universe, advocates
of yoga emphasized the possibility of liberating oneself from nature’s determining
influences. And while great sages saw knowledge as the vehicle of self-realization,
skeptics were rejecting the ways of knowing postulated by other philosophers and
questioning the possibility of any knowledge whatever.
Some philosophers maintained that reality consists of discrete things, each
complete in itself and not dependent on other things for its existence. But others
regarded reality as a seamless web in which all aspects and moments of existence
are interconnected with every other aspect or moment, denying independence to
individual things or processes—whether mental or material. The materialists em-
phasized the material world, admitting as real only what could be sensed, with
many advocating living for the moment in such a way as to derive the greatest
amount of pleasure from each moment of life. At the same time ascetics, convinced
that material reality was a form of bondage, were avoiding pleasure and contact
with the world to achieve a higher, nonmaterial mode of life.
Religious thought is equally diverse. Some religions, Jainism and Buddhism,
for example, are even atheistic, but Vishnuism and Shivaism are theistic. Some
Hindus worship one Supreme God while other Hindus worship many deities.
Jainas believe in a spiritual self separate from the body, a self that can be liberated
at death, but Buddhists reject such an idea. For some Hindus devotion is the way to
salvation, while for others knowledge or action are the essential means. And the list
of differences—seemingly endless when details are considered—goes on. There is
probably no more diverse and pluralistic culture in the world than the Indian. Cer-
tainly no one image or description could possibly capture the rich diversity of four
thousand years of Indian thought.
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 5

Perhaps a sense of India’s contemporary diversity, and also its connections

with the past, can be provided by two vignettes, the first featuring a North Indian
urban family, the second a rural, South Indian family.1 Prithya is a 48-year-old col-
lege graduate, mother of a 23-year-old son, Raj, and a 21-year-old daughter, Lak-
shi, who lives in a New Delhi suburb with her widowed mother, her children and
her husband in a modest bungalow. Prithya works as a computer programmer for a
hi-tech company in New Delhi, while her husband, Manu, works as an engineer
for an airline company. Socially and economically, they are part of India’s growing
upper-middle class with incomes more than 40 times the country’s average per
capita income. Raj, still single and not interested in marrying for a few more years,
designs Web-based software for a very successful new company that started up
only three years ago, and already earns more than both of his parents. Lakshi,
while resisting her parents’ efforts to find a husband for her, is trying to decide
whether to go to graduate school in New Delhi, where she can continue living with
her family and enjoy the company of her friends, or in America, where she thinks
she may find more employment opportunities and a more exciting life.
Prithya has just returned from a week-long pilgrimage, taken with her
mother, her aunt, and two friends, to Varanasi, perhaps India’s holiest city and one
of its most sacred pilgrimage sites for more than three thousand years. She de-
scribes the excitement of the 80 pilgrims, squeezed into every available seat on the
deluxe tour bus, as the loudspeakers blared one devotional song after another, in-
terrupted only by a continuous stream of devotional videos playing on the one large
and three small screens in the bus. For all, this was a wonderful opportunity for
dar∏ana, the seeing of God, and the being seen by God, that is central to Hindu re-
ligious life. Prithya recalls the powerful feelings of purification and sanctification
that came over her when, along with thousands of other people, she bathed in the
waters of the holy Ga∑ga. And she shares with her family the awesome encounter
with the divine presence in the sacred center (Garbha Grha) of dozens of temples in
this sacred city that filled her with ecstatic anticipation. As she describes the sight
of thousands of happy old people who have travelled here from all over India for
the privilege of drawing their last breaths in this holiest of places, her mother, fin-
gering her prayer beads, nods agreement and sighs contentedly. Manu recalls his
own pilgrimage to Varanasi, some ten years before, and reminds the family that this
river and this city actually embody the sacred presence of Lord Siva, making it the
spiritual center of the universe. Because all of the spiritual power of the universe is
concentrated there, the pilgrims who come to die are confident that this will be
their final death, marking their release from the long cycle of reincarnations, en-
abling them to finally experience the incredible joy of moksa, the final liberation.
Raj and Lakshi, however, have grown impatient. Raj thinks that religion is
ultimately nothing but a bunch of superstitions, rooted in fears of old age and
death. He respects his parents and does not want to upset them, but he feels that he
does not really share their faith. And right now he would rather be in the Metro-
politan Mall, only ten minutes away, in Gurgaon, sipping coffee with his friends at

1
The following examples, although they represent actual events and activities, and are based on the ex-
periences of real people, are fictional constructs.
6 Chapter 1

Barista Coffee (Indian Starbucks), or eating at McDonalds, discussing whether to

buy a motorcycle, a sports car, or a sports utility vehicle when he gets his next
bonus. Lakshi is not sure whether she shares her parents’ faith or not, but at this
moment would rather hang with her friends at the mall, maybe shop at some of the
Western stores, and then see a new Bollywood film that has just opened. Neither
Lakshi nor Raj join their parents in their daily worship rituals in the shrine room, a
small room off the kitchen that is, in effect, a small temple complete with images
and holy pictures. Every morning, after bathing and putting on fresh clothes, and
after a few minutes of purifying yoga exercises and meditation, Manu and Prithya
enter the shrine room, ring a bell to awaken the deity, and opening the door of a
miniature temple, take out the bronze image of the deity, Lord KrsΔa, inviting him
to be their special guest. After bathing and drying the image, they anoint the Lord
with sandalwood paste, rose water, honey, and milk, dress him in fine clothes and
beautiful jewels and place him in a special chair. After entertaining him with songs
and stories praising his wonderful accomplishments, they offer a variety of flowers,
fruits, and foods. Then, sometimes after special requests and words of praise and
thanksgiving, they invite the Lord to take his leave and return to his abode, return-
ing the image to the miniature temple.
Let us turn now to a rural, Dalit (formerly called “untouchables”) family, liv-
ing in the small village of Kanyaka some 60 miles east of Madurai, in the southern
state of Tamil Nadu. Yadav, 38, his wife, Arati, and their three daughters and two
sons, live with his parents, his two brothers, their wives and their seven children, in
a thatched mud hut on the south side of Manoloka Road, alongside 18 other Dalit
families. It is the Manoloka Road that separates the mud huts of the Dalits, the
other low-caste families, and the three Muslim families, which, together, make up
40% of the 1400 residents of this rather typical farming village, from the middle-
and upper-caste families. The Farmer castes, subdivided into 10 kinship groups
that interact closely with each other and live clustered together in the best part of
the village in relatively spacious and well-maintained brick houses, constitute 20%
of the village but own more than 90% of the land, making them the wealthiest and
most powerful residents of Kanyaka. Like most other Dalit families, Yadav and
Arati, along with his brothers and their wives, work in the fields for the Farmers,
and are poorly paid, often receiving most of their wages in rice or sugar cane, the
two main cash crops grown in the village fields. But Yadav and his brothers are
hopeful of improving their position, thanks largely to the powerful caste associa-
tion they joined almost ten years ago, which has had significant influence in recent
elections with the result that schools for their children, low-interest loans through
the local cooperative, new jobs in the nearby regional center of Thiruvela, and
guarantees of a greater percentage of wages in cash have recently become available.
All of the girls in Yadav’s family are currently attending school, whereas a genera-
tion ago only 30% of the village girls went to school more than two years. Just two
years ago they were given rights to use the village tank for bathing and washing
clothes, saving them from having to make a ten minute trip to “their own” local
pond. And although they still prefer their own small Murugan temple, they are no
longer prohibited from entering the village Shivanand temple used by the higher
castes. Yadav’s father, Munis, still worries that his sons’ caste-related political ac-
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 7

tivities will provoke a backlash from the upper-caste villagers, whose power and
authority are being challenged, resulting in possible loss of jobs and threats to his
family. But his sons assure him that these are not the bad old days, when low-caste
people had no rights and the wealthy upper castes could do whatever they wanted.
“Look,” they tell him, “our political activities have succeeded in raising our wages,
getting small plots of land to grow vegetables, opening schools for our children,
and enabling some of us to get good jobs outside of the village.”
Last April, at the end of the “winter” harvest season, when Yadav and Arati,
his brother Balu and his wife, Sangeet, and the three eldest children in the family
went on pilgrimage to the great Mınaksı temple in Madurai, they went with the
leader and 40 other members of their local Dalit caste association. After two days
of excited and hurried preparations the group had set off on their 62 mile journey
early Tuesday morning, stopping first at their own small Murugan temple for
dar∏ana and to ask the protection and blessing of Lord Vinayaka (the elephant-
headed son of Siva and Parvatı) for their three-day journey. Walking along sec-
ondary roads and village trails, they joined together in singing the praises of God
and recalling the stories of the wondrous deeds of the gods and goddesses made fa-
mous by the ancient singers and storytellers. When they stopped in the shade of a
grove of trees to eat and rest at midday they exchanged visions of what they
thought the great temple of the goddess would be like and what benefits they
would receive from their pilgrimage to the sacred site. Rested and refreshed, hearts
filled with joyous anticipation, the small group continued on their way to the

Figure 1–1 A family of devotees at the Mınaksı Temple in Madurai. (Source: © Steve Allen
Travel Photography/Alamy)
8 Chapter 1

temple town of Karaikudi, where, after bringing their offerings of flowers, fruits,
herbs, ointments, perfumes and various foods, they participated in the evening
puja (worship service) offered to Lord Siva by the temple priests, rejoicing in their
dar∏ana in this holy place. Here they spent their first night, in the temple com-
pound, eating and talking with other pilgrims, three of whom, nearing the comple-
tion of a six month pilgrimage to the holiest and most sacred of temples and tırthas
(sacred river crossings, sacred tanks, and sacred ocean sites) of south India, told in-
spiring stories of what they had seen and heard.
The second morning they awoke at dawn, circumambulated the temple three
times, brought new offerings for the morning puja, and after seeking the blessings
of Murugan and his brother, Vinayaka, set out for the great Siva temple in the re-
gional center of Shivaganga, where they spent their second night. Although, in
many ways, the second evening was like the first, because it was a quite different
temple, in a quite different city, with a wonderful black stone lingam representing
Siva and beautiful carved images of Parvatı and Vinayaka, it seemed to everyone to
be an entirely different experience, even more awesome and exhilarating than the
first. When they set out on the third morning, after the morning pujas and bless-
ings, many in the group were so intoxicated by their sense of being filled with
God’s presence that their voices swelled and their bodies swayed as they walked
along, singing the ancient songs of praise to Lord Siva in his various manifesta-
tions, hastening on their way to Madurai, to take dar∏ana of the great goddess
Mınaksı and her husband, Lord Siva, in his form as Sundare∏vara.
In Madurai, a famous temple town for at least two thousand years, they
stayed for three days in the temple compound itself, joined there by thousands of
other pilgrims from all over India. Most of the first day they gazed in awe at the
four lofty gateways (gopura) of the temple soaring skyward with all of the brilliantly
colored sculptures and carvings depicting the wonderful accounts of gods, god-
desses, divine beings, sages, saints and demons, listening to temple guides recount
the stories presented in the theater of the gateways. Because of their special rela-
tionship to Lord Murugan, they were especially fascinated by the drama of his bat-
tle with the demon Suraman, who, because of an earlier gift from the gods because
of the great penances he had performed, grew five new heads every time Murugan
cut off his five heads. But eventually Murugan defeated Suraman, symbolizing the
Lord’s power to destroy evil and to protect his devotees from harm. In defeat, Sura-
man transforms into the peacock that is Murugan’s special vehicle. The story of
how the gods then arranged Murugan’s marriage to Tevayanai, daughter of the
great god Indra, is also very special, for in their small village temple there is also an
image of the goddess Tevayanai, and every year there is a special festival where her
marriage to Lord Murugan is reenacted amidst great celebration.
On the second day, their hearts brimming with devotion as a result of what
felt like continuous dar∏ana and unending pujas, the pilgrims were prepared for the
greatest of Madurai’s seasonal festivals, the Chittarai festival. The reenactment of
Mınaksı’s conquest of the lords of the eight directions, thereby reestablishing the
sacred order of the universe and the celebration of her marriage to Siva
Sundare∏var, establishing the sovereignty of this divine couple at the center of the
world, are celebrated with incredible excitement. Tens of thousands of people,
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 9

dressed in their finest, shout encouragement to the goddess, cheer her victory, and
celebrate her wedding as they fill the streets encircling the temple, hoping for a
glimpse of her image as it is carried on a palanquin from the outer streets back into
the temple at the close of the marriage procession. The special foods, the singing
and the dancing at this joyous celebration of the sacredness of the cosmos con-
vinced the pilgrims that they had, indeed, joined a party of the gods.
The day after the wedding ceremony and procession (which lasted all night)
is also special because Lord Alagar, a special form of VisΔu, who has been travel-
ling for days from his special temple, Alagar Koil, to attend the wedding of
Mınaksı to Siva, now arrives at the temple. Although, as always, he has come a day
late, this does not seem to matter as he is greeted with great applause, song, and
dance, with thousands of people joining his procession at the outskirts of Madurai
and accompanying him to the gateway of the Mınaksı temple. To be privileged to
have such special dar∏ana of the three great forms of God, Siva, VisΔu, and the
Goddess, at this sacred place would mark this as an unforgettable event in these
pilgrims’ lives.
The next day, after their morning dar∏anas and pujas, and after again invok-
ing the blessings of Lord Vinayaka for a safe journey home, they made a special
stop at the shrine of their chosen deity, Murugan, before beginning the trip home.
Here their guide impressed them with the power of asceticism by retelling the story
of Murugan’s choice of an ascetic life style and the special powers it gave him.
When Murugan and his brother, Vinayaka, were children their parents, Siva and
Parvatı, had promised a special reward to whichever child could encircle the world
first. Murugan immediately set off running as fast as he could, but Vinayaka, after
some thought, encircled his parents and proclaimed that, since his parents were his
whole world, he had won the contest and deserved the prize. When, some time
later, Murugan had completed his journey around the world only to discover that
his parents had given the prize to Vinayaka, he was so offended at what he saw as
his parents’ favoritism for his brother that he became an ascetic, thereby gaining
enormous powers, including his power over all forms of evil.
Retracing their steps, the Dalit pilgrims returned home to share their won-
derful experiences with others in their community, inspiring all to work even
harder through their caste association to improve their lot and that of their children
so that they could seize more opportunities to enrich their lives.

CENTRAL IDEAS

Different as these two families and their experiences are, they share a sense of the
underlying unity of reality, of the seemingly infinite manifestations of this unity, of
the power of bhakti (a word derived from a root meaning “to share” which reveals
its meaning of devotion, in the sense of sharing everything with God) to transform
life, and of the importance of pilgrimage. Indeed, if we look deeply into the diver-
sity and changes that characterize Indian history we find that there are certain im-
portant ideas and attitudes that have had a continuing influence on Indian thought
and culture and that might be regarded as constituting a central Indian way. It is
10 Chapter 1

essentially a way of freedom, of liberation from bondage to suffering and frag-

mented existence.
Seeking to understand the deepest level of reality and to satisfy the deep
human longing for spiritual fulfillment, India’s great sages and philosophers de-
voted themselves to exploring and studying the range and depth of human experi-
ence. Impressed with the human capacity for thought, feeling, imagination, and
action, and with the ability to enter creatively into the shaping of our own human-
ness, they sought a link between the dynamic energy of reality in its deepest levels
and the ground of human existence. Although the wisdom generated by this quest
cannot be condensed into a simple formula, the insight of the sages of the Upanisads
that the fundamental energizing power of the cosmos (Brahman) and the spiritual
energy of human beings (Atman) are one and the same is basic to Indian thought.
At the deepest levels of our existence, we share in the very energies and pow-
ers that create and structure the universe itself, according to India’s greatest sages.
And because of our participation in the ultimate energy and power of reality, it is
possible to transform our superficial, suffering, and limited existence into a free
and boundless existence in which life is experienced at its deepest and most pro-
found level, entirely free from suffering. This spiritual transformation has consti-
tuted the ultimate aim in life for most of the Indian people over the ages.
This underlying vision of participation in the ultimate reality and the aim of
spiritual transformation of human existence have guided much of Indian philoso-
phy and religious thought, giving shape to the Indian way. We need to explore the
origins and development of this way and examine its presuppositions and implica-
tions if we are to understand the Indian mind. Although this exploration and ex-
amination will occupy us the entire length of this book, it will be helpful to identify
and briefly describe the key features of the Indian way at the outset.
The underlying visions, as we have already noted, are those of the fundamen-
tal unity of existence and of the possibility of complete freedom from the limita-
tions and suffering that characterize ordinary human existence. But these two
visions are like brightly shining galaxies, illumined by many associated ideas. We
will identify and explain briefly the more important of these ideas now, before
going on to a deeper exploration of them in the succeeding chapters.

Reality Ideas
The vision of the ultimate unity of existence includes the ideas of (1) undivided
wholeness, (2) levels of reality, (3) the normative dimension of existence, (4) the
boundlessness of ultimate reality, (5) the profundity of existence, (6) Gods and
Goddesses as limited symbols of the ultimate reality, and (7) the limitations of or-
dinary means of knowledge.

Undivided Wholeness. The world of distinct and separate things and

processes is seen to be a manifestation of a more fundamental level of reality that is
undivided and unconditioned. Sometimes referred to as the unconditioned
(asa∂skrta) or nondual (advaita) reality, this undivided wholeness constituting the
ultimate level of reality is called by various names: Brahman, Atman, Buddha na-
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 11

ture, Thusness, Purusa, Jıva, Lord, and so on. What is especially important about
this vision is that the ultimate reality is not seen as a separate reality, something
apart from ordinary events and things, but as the inner being and ground of ordi-
nary existence. Developed initially in the Vedas and Upanisads, this vision of undi-
vided wholeness came to inspire the entire tradition—Buddhist, Jaina, and Yoga
systems as well as Hinduism. Each of the succeeding chapters will contribute
something to our understanding of this unfolding vision.

Levels of Reality. Within the totality of existence there are various levels of
reality or orders of being, ranging from non-existence to empirical existence lim-
ited by space and time, to consciousness that is limited only by the conditions of
awareness, to an indescribable level that is beyond all conditions and limits what-
ever. The deeper the level of reality, the more fully it participates in the truth of
being and the greater its value. Our examination of the teachings of the Upanisads
(Chapter 4) will reveal how these levels were conceived initially and how this idea
relates to the quest for liberation.

The Normative Dimension of Existence. The deepest level of reality,

which grounds all the other levels, is normative. It poses an “ought” for life that
stems from the heart of existence. Norms for right living are not derived from
human reason and imposed on life from the outside, but are an integral part of the
fabric of existence. It is true that human reason interprets and applies the norms of
true or right living, but the foundation of these norms is much deeper than reason,
emanating from the very nature and expression of reality at its deepest level. This is
why in India it is generally recognized that a person who is true to the inner norms
of existence has incredible power; if Sıta has been true to Rama, then that act of
truth will give her power over fire and permit her to walk from the raging flames
unscathed. In Chapter 3 we will explore the source of this idea of the normative na-
ture of reality in the concept of rta, and in Chapter 5 we will see how the normative
dimension of reality grounds dharma, the rules for right living.

Boundlessness of Ultimate Reality. At the deepest level, existence is

boundless; there are no limits and all possibilities may co-exist without excluding
or compromising each other. At this level, opposites do not exclude each other, but
co-exist in complementarity, enriching each other. This should not be thought of as
some kind of grand synthesis, Hegelian or otherwise, for synthesis is seen as a
process of enclosing and restricting possibilities. Time is endless, space is endless,
the number of Gods and Goddesses is endless, and so on. Indian mythology espe-
cially celebrates the idea that opposites exist together with all of their differences
arising and co-existing simultaneously in a totally unrestricted universe of infinite
freedom and richness. We will encounter this idea of the boundlessness of existence
in many places, ranging from Jaina logic to the Buddhist ideal of universal compas-
sion. But it becomes the special focus of Chapters 10 and 11, which explore devo-
tional religion.

Profundity of Existence. The depth and profundity of reality at the ulti-

mate level are such that reason is incapable of completely comprehending them.
12 Chapter 1

Human reason is a wonderful faculty for guiding our investigations of the empiri-
cal world and proves extremely useful for understanding the rules of our practical
and theoretical activities. But as fond of rational analysis and argument as most In-
dians are, they generally agree that, because reason operates by differentiating and
comparing, it is incapable of comprehending the deepest dimensions of reality that
are beyond all divisions and differences. This sense of the profundity of reality un-
derlies Indian mysticism and encourages the emphasis upon meditation and direct
insight that we will encounter in one form or another in nearly every system.
Chapter 8, on yoga, explores the philosophy of disciplined meditation as a means
of removing the obstacles to direct insight into the true nature of reality.

Gods and Goddesses as Symbols of Power. Because the ultimate level of

reality is undivided, Indian Gods and Goddesses, from Vedic times to the present,
are usually understood to be symbols of the ultimate reality rather than the ultimate
reality itself. The ultimate has no form and no name; what can be given a name and
identifiable characteristics is not the ultimate. As symbols, Gods and Goddesses
both participate partially in the higher reality that they symbolize and point beyond
themselves to the fullness of that reality. No number of symbols can exhaust the
fullness of the ultimate, so there is no limit to the number of Gods. This is why a
Hindu can say in the same breath that there are millions of Gods, only one God,
and no Gods, for the last two statements mean, respectively, that all Gods symbol-
ize the one ultimate reality and that this reality cannot be captured entirely by a
symbol. But that a deity is not the ultimate reality does not mean that it is unreal.
On the contrary, because the deity as symbol participates in the deeper levels of re-
ality, its reality is greater than that of our ordinary existence, and by identifying
with the deity in love and through ritual action, the power of this deeper level of re-
ality becomes available to help effect a spiritual transformation of life. It is this un-
derstanding of deity that underlies Hindu theism and devotionalism. Chapters 10
and 11 examine the functions of the Gods and Goddesses in Hinduism.

Limits of Ordinary Means of Knowledge. Because ordinary means of

knowledge cannot penetrate the profound and undivided ultimate level of reality,
there has been great emphasis on developing extraordinary means of knowledge.
Through concentration and meditation, direct insight into the true nature of reality
at its most profound level becomes possible. The limitations of knowledge medi-
ated through sensory and conceptual filters are overcome in this direct and imme-
diate knowledge through transempirical and transrational insight. Jainism, Bud-
dhism, and the Upanisads all emphasize the limitations of ordinary knowledge.

Syncretism and Tolerance

The influence of this galaxy of seven fundamental reality ideas is at least partially
revealed in the syncretic and tolerant attitudes that have characterized Indian
thought over the ages.

Syncretic Tendencies. Because of the depth and profundity of primordial

wholeness of existence, it is accepted that no description, formula, or symbol can
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 13

adequately convey the entire truth about anything. Each perspective provides a
partial glimpse of reality, but none provides a complete view. Different partial—
even opposing—visions are regarded as complementing each other, each con-
tributing something to a fuller understanding of reality. Accordingly, every means
to penetrate to the ultimate level of reality and to experience one’s identity with this
reality must be utilized, and Indian thinkers exhibit a ready willingness to adopt
new perspectives and new positions. Old positions and perspectives are not aban-
doned, however. The new is simply added on to the old, providing another dimen-
sion to one’s knowledge. The new dimension may render the old less dominant or
important, but it does not require the latter’s rejection. A friend once likened the
traditional storehouse of Indian ideas to a four-thousand-year-old attic to which
things were added every year but which was never once cleaned out!

Tolerance. The conviction that the highest truth is too profound to allow
anyone to get an exclusive grasp on it underlies not only the syncretic attitude, but
also a general spirit of tolerance in the realm of beliefs. Heresy is practically impos-
sible, because, when no beliefs can be said to be absolutely true, no beliefs can be
declared absolutely false. In one family a grandfather may worship GaΔapati, an
uncle worship VisΔu, the mother worship KrsΔa, and the son be an atheist—all
without upsetting the father who is a priest connected with the Devı temple. Per-
haps no other culture has permitted—indeed, encouraged—so much religious tol-
erance; fanaticism has been a relatively rare phenomenon, at least until the last cen-
tury. It should be pointed out, however, that this extreme tolerance with respect to
beliefs was nearly matched by an intolerance of action. Nonconformity to codes of
action were not tolerated by family, caste, or village.

Freedom Ideas
When we turn to the vision of spiritual transformation and freedom, we discover
another constellation of ideas basic to the Indian way. These include the ideas of (1)
karmic bondage, and liberation from this bondage through (2) asceticism, (3) yoga,
(4) ritual, (5) devotion, (6) truthful action (dharma), and (7) the suprarationalism
of transforming techniques.
The aim of freedom arises from an understanding of the nature of the undi-
vided wholeness of existence. Because human existence is rooted in, and ultimately
identical with, the ultimate reality, there is a deep sense of the wonderful perfection
of the human self, a sense that regards ordinary existence, imperfect and limited as
it is, as a form of bondage from which liberation should be sought as the most fun-
damental aim of life.

Karmic Bondage. Life is ordinarily lived at a relatively superficial level, a

level at which the ultimate reality is experienced only in fragmented and limited
forms. These fragmented and partial forms of existence are actually forms of
bondage, restricting access to the full power or energy of life flowing from the
deepest level of reality. In bondage, the power of ultimate reality is experienced as
karma, patterns of energy generated and released through actions that connect
14 Chapter 1

processes and events to each other. It is these connections that make possible suf-
fering and happiness and repeated births and deaths. Only by getting rid of the
karmic connectors and conditions can one get free of the limitations of existence—
limitations experienced most vividly in the cycles of repeated suffering and deaths.
Karma can be overcome, however, only by shifting existence to a deeper level,
where the ultimate energy is experienced not as fragmented and limited, but as the
whole and perfect expression of undivided reality at its deepest level. But how can
this be done? How can the bonds of karma be removed?
This question has been addressed by almost all of India’s religious and philo-
sophical thinkers. Nearly every chapter will reveal something about the various re-
sponses to this question—from the Jaina answer that only knowledge can
overcome karma and that all action whatever must cease, to the Gıta’s answer that
only by acting without any attachment to the results can karma be overcome. In
Chapters 12 and 13 we will see how the problem of bondage is central to systematic
philosophy.

Asceticism. In every society cultural ideals are embodied in hero types who
provide inspiration for living. In India one of the most influential hero types, from
Vedic times to the present, has been the ascetic who has renounced the world in
favor of spiritual fulfillment. The ascetic program is to “burn off” the physical and
mental bonds of existence through ascetic practices. Developing the psychic and
spiritual powers through a combination of ascetic and meditational techniques, the
ascetic is able to enter directly into the mysterious depths of the most profound lev-
els of reality, beyond heavens and hells and Gods and Goddesses. In the experi-
enced identity with the ultimate reality, the ascetic hero discovers a full and perfect
truth and bliss. Birth and death, sorrows and joys, good and evil—all are left be-
hind, seen finally as only the limited forms of an incomplete existence lived at a
shallow level. Experiencing identity with the deepest level of reality, the ascetic dis-
covers perfect freedom; there is nothing in the universe with power to bind and
limit. This is the hero of heroes, the conqueror of conquerors, for no other conquest
can compare with the conquest of suffering and bondage. These conquerors—
Mahavıra, the Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and the countless other “renounced
ones”—are the great heroes who from time immemorial have captured the imagi-
nation of the Indian people and have shown the way of spiritual progress. In Jain-
ism, as we shall see in Chapter 6, the ascetic ideal is carried to its logical extreme;
the ascetic hero engages in a holy fast unto death to achieve perfect purity and total
liberation.

Yoga. The ascetic ideal, although inherently different, came to be associated

with the ideal of the yogin prior to the sixth century B.C.E. The idea of yoga is es-
sentially to use and develop the energies and powers experienced at a lower level of
existence in such a way that they become the vehicles for crossing over to a higher
level. The two underlying assumptions are that (1) the energies experienced at the
lower levels are not different from the energies constituting the core of the highest
level; it is just that they are received and experienced in a very limited and frag-
mented way; and (2) through self-discipline and control, these energies and powers
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 15

can become self-illumining, revealing the fullness of ultimate reality, the ground of
all existence. In Chapter 8 these assumptions are discussed both in terms of the
eight sets of yogic techniques designed to achieve the control and illumination
needed to reach the highest level of reality and in relation to the philosophy of yoga.

Devotion. The other hero type of great influence in religious thought has
been that of the saint (sadhu), who through personal holiness and fervent love of
God gains access to the inner secrets and powers of reality. The development and
spread of Hinduism and the attractiveness of Sufic Islam in medieval India were
due in large measure to the influence of these God-intoxicated persons who,
through their ecstatic poems, songs, and devotional practices, showed the way to
the ultimate level of reality through the rapture of loving devotion. The chapters on
the Gıta, Devotional Hinduism, and Islam all reveal something of the nature of the
devotional way.

Ritual. Ritual action has been seen as an important way of entering into the
creative process and returning to the source of the creative energy of ultimate real-
ity since the time of the Rg Veda more than three thousand years ago. The ritual
becomes the means of crossing over from the limitations and fragmentariness of a
life lived in separation from its ultimate source to the fullness found in the creative
center of reality. The forms of ritual action and their relative importance within the
culture have changed over the centuries, but the essential idea of returning one’s
existence to its source through rituals as a way of restoring wholeness and facilitat-
ing participation in the most profound level of reality has been continuous.
Chapters 2 and 3 examine the Vedic way of sustaining and renewing life through
ritual action.

Truthful Action or Dharma As we have noted, reality is conceived to be

essentially normative; each being or event is given both its existence and a rule of
action for expressing that existence. In the Vedas, this truth of action that is part of
a being’s very existence is seen in terms of rta, a kind of rhythmic ordering that
keeps all things in their place and functioning in accord with their inner natures.
After the Vedic period, this normative dimension of existence came to be seen as
dharma, the rule of inner nature that supports and sustains both individual beings
and the entire cosmos. By being true to this inner rule a person realizes the deeper
foundations of existence and experiences a richness and power of existence that fa-
cilitates the transformation to a more profound mode of existence. Although the
idea of the power of truth and truthful living was brought to the forefront of mod-
ern consciousness and made a basis of reform through the efforts of persons like
Dayananda and Gandhi, it has been an important idea for millennia, undergirding
Indian morality. Chapter 5 focuses on the concept of dharma.

Suprarationalism of Transforming Techniques. As means of spiritual

transformation all these techniques go beyond merely rational comprehension.
They employ all available human powers, integrating them into a concerted stream
of activity that, like a powerful laser, goes straight to its target. Taking the self to be
16 Chapter 1

the ultimate ground of being, these techniques enable the self to return to its source
in the undivided wholeness of ultimate reality. It may be called NirvaΔa, Moksa,
Kaivalya, or Union, but at bottom it is the bliss and freedom of life lived whole, at
its most fundamental level.

PATTERNS AND PROCESSES

In what sense do these fourteen interrelated ideas and two accompanying attitudes
constitute the basis of the Indian way of religious and philosophical thought? Cer-
tainly not in the sense that they have been the unchanging substratum of a constant
Indian vision over the ages, for there has been no unchanging vision, and these
ideas have themselves been undergoing continuous modification over the cen-
turies. Not a single important idea can be pointed to that has endured without
change through the last three thousand years. And certainly not in the sense that
these ideas and attitudes, even in their continuously changing forms and expres-
sions, have anchored the guiding vision of life for everyone at all times. Indian
thought has always been pluralistic. There have always been materialists, fatalists,
and skeptics. And despite a widespread tendency to see reality at its most basic
level as an undivided wholeness, for some thinkers reality was radically plural to
the core, while for others undivided wholeness belonged only to spiritual reality,
which was regarded as distinct from the reality of matter and mind. There is cer-
tainly no unanimity about the nature of reality or the preferred means of spiritual
transformation among the classical philosophical visions.
Indeed, we began by pointing out the great diversity and continuous change
that have characterized Indian culture since its beginnings. In light of this continu-
ous pattern of change and diversity, it would be exceedingly rash and unwise to
claim that there is one unchanging way of thinking and acting that is exclusively
and uniquely Indian. Such a claim would represent an implicit attempt to reduce
the rich and changing diversity that is India to a single simple formula that would
reveal next to nothing of the wide range of changing, living ideas that constitute the
great traditions of Indian thought. Vedic thought, Jainism, Buddhism, and Hin-
duism are clearly different ways of thinking and must be understood in terms of
their differences as well as their similarities. By examining the full diversity and
complexity of Indian thought in its various expressions it becomes possible to de-
tect certain underlying ideas and attitudes that, despite important differences be-
tween the various visions and ways that have developed over thousands of years,
come together to form a larger pattern of continuity that we can meaningfully call
the Indian way.
It should also be pointed out that no claim is being made for the exclusive-
ness of the Indian way. Even if the basic features of religious and philosophical
thought that constitute the Indian way are seen to be similar to the Greek or Chi-
nese ways in important respects, the claim that they constitute the Indian way will
still stand, for it is not claimed that this way is unique to India, but only that it is
basic to India.
Introduction: Diversity, Change, and Continuity 17

Nor is it being claimed that these basic ideas are to be found in every thinker
or in every period. Some of these ideas were extremely important at a particular
time, but having given shape to the developing way, then passed more or less unno-
ticed. The idea of rta, the normative nature of reality, was a powerful Vedic idea
that came to be taken for granted to such an extent that, though the idea survived
in the twin concepts of dharma and karma, the very word “rta” disappeared from
the philosophical and religious vocabulary. Any idea that contributed to the domi-
nant modes of thinking, feeling, and acting in any one period thereby influenced
and shaped the thought of the succeeding period and deserves to be noted. Some-
times the influence of ideas extends far beyond the particular religious-philosophi-
cal system in which it developed. The actual number of Jainas, for example, has
always been relatively small compared with the total population, but their idea of
nonhurting (ahi∂sa) quickly became a basic principle of morality in most of the
other systems of thought, and their emphasis on asceticism highlights a technique
of liberation that has been influential in all of the Indian religions.
To do justice to both the underlying unity and the clearly exhibited diversity
of Indian thought, we shall explore the major developments in Indian thought in
chronological order yet at the same time not create artificial temporal categories.
For example, even though Jainism has a continuous twenty-five-hundred-year his-
tory, the various developments within that history are all considered in a single
chapter devoted to exploring fundamental Jaina ideas.
It is hoped that this approach will enable the reader to understand each
major system or development in its own terms and at the same time exhibit the
larger pattern that has given the Indian way its color, flavor, and feeling. Both the
basic and the major characteristics of Indian values and thought should be illumi-
nated in the process.

FURTHER READING

There are so many books on India that it is difficult to single out only a few. The
suggestions at the end of each chapter are made on the criteria of importance, read-
ability, and availability. Many of the suggested books are available in paperback
editions published in the United States. Books intended for experts in the field
have not been included on the assumption that advanced students of the subject al-
ready know the important literature in their field.

Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the In-
dian Sub-Continent Before the Coming of the Muslims. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1967.
A brilliant introduction to Indian culture.
———. A Cultural History of India. Edited by A. L. Basham. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975. A collection of essays by distinguished scholars.
Dasgupta, Surendranath, and Surama Dasgupta. A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vols.
Cambridge: University Press, 1922. Still the most comprehensive and best history of In-
dian philosophy.
18 Chapter 1

De Bary, William Theodore, Ainslie Thomas Embree, Amy Vladeck. A Guide to Oriental
Classics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. A very useful guide to the most im-
portant Asian texts.
Embree, Ainslie Thomas, Stephen N. Hay, and William Theodore De Bary. Sources of In-
dian Tradition. 2 vols. Introduction to Oriental Civilizations. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1988. An excellent collection of source materials from a variety of perspectives.
Ganguly, Sumit, and Neil De Votta, ed. Understanding Contemporary India. Boulder; Lon-
don: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003. An excellent guide to India’s current problems and
challenges; includes a chapter providing the historical context.
Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism, 2nd ed. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994. Probably the best survey of Hinduism available.
Koller, John M. Asian Philosophies, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Part one provides a good introduction to the main Indian philosophical traditions.
Koller, John M., and Patricia Joyce Koller. A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy. New York:
Macmillan, 1991. Contains over 300 pages of sources for studying Indian philosophy.
Thapar, Romila. Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Berkeley, Calif.: University of
California Press, 2003. The culmination of a life’s work on early Indian history by one of
India’s most distinguished historians.
Wolpert, Stanley A. A New History of India, 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press,
2003. A readable and up-to-date history of India from its beginnings to the 21st century.
 2

Roots of the Indian

Way: Indus and Vedic
Beginnings

ong before Homer—and probably before the reign of Tutankhamen in

L Egypt—Vedic poets and seers in India were composing and singing joyous
songs to proclaim the wonders of existence and to probe its mysteries. The collec-
tion of more than ten thousand of these “wisdom verses” known as the Rg Veda is
the oldest and most important literary source of subsequent Indian thought and
practice. Revealing sophisticated understandings of human nature and penetrating
insights into the powers by which life is transformed, these song-poems are a re-
markable testament of human wisdom. They were also integral to the practice of a
large set of religious rituals, some of which are still performed by Hindus today.
The archaeological record of the Indus (sometimes called Harappan) civiliza-
tion that flourished in the Indus valley four to five thousand years ago provides ev-
idence of another important source for later Indian civilization. Although much of
our knowledge of this great civilization, the remains of which were only discovered
in 1922, is conjectural, it appears that it was comparable in cultural and technologi-
cal sophistication to the early civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and some-
what larger in size. Unfortunately, the only writings to have survived are the still
undeciphered glyphics on seals. Lacking written documents, our knowledge of
Indus civilization must be constructed solely on the basis of its material remains.
But the archaeological reconstruction strongly suggests that the culture of Indus
civilization contributed much to the later development of Indian tradition.

19
20 Chapter 2

Which came first, Indus civilization or the Rg Veda? Scholars are not sure.
The theory of the origins of ancient Indian thought that prevailed among scholars
for over a century, up until about thirty years ago, was that there were two power-
ful, but separate, sources for later Indian thought. On the one hand, there were
various indigenous peoples with their distinct cultures, including, importantly, the
peoples of the sophisticated Indus civilization. On the other hand, there were the
Sanskrit speaking peoples who had composed the very impressive Rg Veda, a text
that includes many references to their life in this same region, the land of the Pan-
jab or “Five Rivers,” sometime before 1500 B.C.E. According to this theory, the
Sanskrit speaking people, often called Indo-Aryans to distinguish them from Euro-
pean Aryans speaking languages that appeared to be closely related to Sanskrit, had
migrated from their homeland somewhere north and east of the Himalayan moun-
tain range, entering into the Indus valley through the northwest mountain passes.
Gradually these Indo-Aryan peoples, who, according to some historians, came as
conquerors, dominated and asserted their influence over the other cultures of the
subcontinent until, by the seventh century B.C.E., practically all of the subconti-
nent (including what today constitutes the political entities of India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh) was under their control and influence.
Today, however, because of the lack of evidence, practically no one believes
that the Vedic people conquered and destroyed the Indus civilization. And, al-
though some scholars still think that the Vedic people were migrants who had split
off from the larger group of Indo-Europeans to which they had originally be-
longed, many scholars, finding practically no archaeological or linguistic evidence
for the migration theory, are inclined to think that perhaps the Vedic peoples were
indigenous to India and had been interacting with other indigenous peoples at the
time of, and perhaps even before, the Indus civilization. But, as Edwin Bryant ob-
serves in his comprehensive overview of the debate over the origins of Vedic cul-
ture, “. . . In the absence of radically new evidence or approaches to the presently
available evidence, theories on the homeland of the Indo-European speaking peo-
ples will never be convincingly proven to the satisfaction of even a minority of
scholars.”1 Fortunately, the issue of Vedic homeland does not need to be settled in
order to get a sense of the Vedic and Indus cultures and their contributions to sub-
sequent Indian thought.
In this chapter we will briefly examine the main features of Indus civilization
to get a sense of Indian thought and culture before the Vedic views came to prevail.
Then we will focus on the Vedas, attempting to identify the central features of the
Vedic vision of life.

INDUS CIVILIZATION

Indus or Harappan, civilization probably began in the Indus River Valley around
3000 B.C.E. It spread rapidly, moving east almost as far as Delhi, north to the
Himalayas, and south almost as far as Bombay, occupying an area greater than one
1
Edwin Bryant, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 10.
Roots of the Indian Way: Indus and Vedic Beginnings 21

third the size of present-day India by 2000 B.C.E. It was thus considerably larger
than the great early civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, with which there was
extensive trade.
By about 1600 B.C.E. Indus civilization appears to have suffered a serious de-
cline. Although the causes of this decline are unknown, current speculation
suggests that earthquakes, flooding, and environmental degradation—resulting in
deforestation and overgrazing—may have combined to drive the Indus people out
of their homeland. As they spread east and south, they presumably merged with
other cultures and lost much of their distinctness. Details of encounters and rela-
tionships between the Indus people and Vedic people are not known, but granted
the extent and accomplishments of Indus civilization, it is probably safe to assume
that these people influenced the developing Vedic culture considerably. This as-
sumption is strongly reinforced by transformations within the Vedic tradition itself
from the twelfth to the sixth centuries B.C.E. (see Chapter 4).
On the other hand, we know that by 1000 B.C.E. the Vedic tradition was well
established in India, and it is safe to assume that the Indus people, along with other
cultural groups, were significantly affected by the Vedic way of life and absorbed
into it, for by the fourth century B.C.E. practically the entire subcontinent was under
the rule of the kings of the Mauryan dynasty who represented a Vedic culture.
Two urban centers—Harappa and Mohenjodaro—reveal some of the accom-
plishments and complexities of Indus civilization. Mohenjodaro was a major city
of between 40,000 and 100,000 people. Its streets were laid out in a well-planned
rectangular grid pattern. Drains were covered and ceramic tiles were used to line
the elaborate water and disposal systems. When we consider also the huge gra-
naries and elaborate bathing facilities—along with the overall organization of these
cities—we have reason to believe that the people of the Indus had a sophisticated
political system, efficient departments of planning and administration, and com-
plex social organization.
Artifacts reveal an accurate system of weights and measures, utilizing effi-
cient binary and decimal systems of mathematical combination. A variety of toys
and games, and what is probably the world’s oldest chess set, suggest a culture that
delighted in children and had time for play. There is also evidence of trade with
other civilizations, as Indus seals have been found in Mesopotamia. Indeed, it has
been suggested that the paradisical land called Dilmun in the Gilgamesh epic is
none other than the India of Indus civilization.
When we ask about Indus conceptions of human nature, religious practice,
their philosophical visions, and the norms that guided their actions, our inability to
find answers is disappointing. Archaeological findings suggest an advanced mater-
ial culture that most likely was associated with equally advanced social and reli-
gious thought and practice. But we are probably doomed to ignorance about Indus
philosophical and religious thought, for the only surviving writings are the glyph-
ics on the hundreds of seals that have been found. None of the several attempts to
decode this language so far has been definitive. But even if a decoding attempt suc-
ceeds, we will learn very little, for there are no surviving texts of any kind to trans-
late and interpret. Thus we must reconstruct the nature of this clearly remarkable
civilization from the archaeological record.
22 Chapter 2

Figure 2–1 The Great Bath at Mohenjodaro. (Source: © robertharding/Alamy.)

Fortunately, in the eighty years since Sir John Marshall first explored Mo-
henjodaro, a great many clues have been found in and around the some three hun-
dred sites identified thus far—even though many of these have not yet been
carefully explored. Elaborate ceremonial buildings—even in the smaller towns
and villages—indicate that religion played a central role in this civilization. A
priesthood is suggested by the masks and horned headdresses that have been dis-
covered. Burials were apparently conducted with great care, suggesting belief in an
afterlife, for which careful ceremonial preparations were necessary. Female fig-
urines emphasizing pregnancy and nourishment point to Mother Goddess wor-
ship. Concern with religious purification is indicated by the remarkable bathing
facilities. The powers of life and virility, particularly as exemplified in male ani-
mals, are emphasized. Indeed, the prevalence of bulls and other male animals—
along with the apparent importance of the Mother Goddess—suggest a religious
preoccupation with fertility.
Indus influence on later developments is suggested by a number of similari-
ties. For example, yoga may have been practiced by the Indus people, for several
seals show a figure in a familiar yoga posture. Later Hindu emphasis on the God-
desses as feminine forms of cosmic creative energy may have its source in this early
civilization for figurines of the Mother Goddess have been found. Some of the
Gods, such as Siva and Pa∏upati—“Lords of the beasts” in Hinduism—may also
have their origins in Indus culture, for a number of seals show a lordly figure sur-
rounded by animals.
Roots of the Indian Way: Indus and Vedic Beginnings 23

Despite the presumed grandeur of Indus thought and culture, and granted
its considerable influence on subsequent Indian culture, the fact remains that grad-
ually all the subcontinent came under Vedic influence. By the time of the Mauryan
dynasty (fourth century B.C.E.), Vedic influence had established a huge political
kingdom, covering practically the entire subcontinent. The religious and philo-
sophical foundation of this increasingly sophisticated and subtle Indian culture
was the Veda. Accepting the later tradition’s tribute to the Vedas as its principal
source of thought and culture, we must now turn our attention to the Vedic images,
concepts, and symbols.

Indus and Vedic Cultures Compared

Indus Vedic

Known from its archaeological remains
Language unknown
No known texts (only seals)
Urban, cities and trade
Religious emphasis on purity and virility
Bulls and other male animals important
Worship of religious images
Located in Indus river valleys (Panjab)
Known from its religious texts
Sanskrit language
Many texts (Vedas)
Pastoral, villages and cattle
Religion oriented around rituals
Cow is important
The sacred is not worshipped through images
Located in Indus river valleys (Panjab)

THE VEDAS

When was the Rg Veda composed? There is considerable disagreement about the
date, with many Western scholars proposing a date between 1900 and 1500 B.C.E.,
while according to the Indian tradition itself, as well as many modern Indian schol-
ars, it may have been composed at least a thousand years earlier, perhaps even prior
to 3000 B.C.E. If the earlier dates are correct, then the Rg Veda would be contempo-
raneous with the Indus civilization that flourished from about 3000 to 1700 B.C.E.
in the plains and valleys of the great Indus river system, the same lands referred to
in the Rg Veda and known for thousands of years as the Panjab or “land of five
rivers.” If the Rg Veda was not composed until 1900 B.C.E. or later, it would come
near the decline of the great Indus civilization. In either case, the Vedic roots of In-
dian thought and culture extend back more than three thousand years.
What are the Vedas? What was their function in Vedic life? What is the im-
portance of the rituals in which they were used? What is the significance of the
Gods and Goddesses referred to so frequently? What reality lies beyond the
deities? How is human life connected to this unseen reality? These questions will
guide our efforts to understand Vedic thought through an analysis of key texts as
we try to comprehend how these people understood themselves and their world.
According to traditional understanding, the Vedas are verses of wisdom.
When they are recited, chanted, and sung as sacred liturgy, they enable the human
community to share in the creative wisdom by which a person can be renewed and
24 Chapter 2

fulfilled through participation in the energy of the Divine Reality. Without this
participation, life is experienced as shallow and fragmented; a person feels con-
fused and alienated. But when one comes to participate in this energy, through
sharing in the sacred sounds of wisdom, life is fulfilled and made whole. Dırghata-
mas, one of the great seer-poets of the Rg Veda expresses this idea beautifully:
I know not what I am:
I wander alone, with troubled mind.
Then comes Speech-awareness,
First-born of the Divine Norm
Of that I receive a share!
(1.164.37)2
Although Dırghatamas is regarded as having “seen” the truth expressed in
the vibrant vitality of his verse, neither he nor the other Vedic seer-poets are consid-
ered to be authors of the Veda. Indeed, the Indian tradition answers the questions
What are the Vedas? and Who are their authors? by proclaiming that they are noth-
ing less than the sacred wisdom of existence and that this wisdom is authorless.
In declaring the Vedas authorless, the tradition does not deny that these
verses were shaped by the craft of the Vedic poets. Rather, the tradition is thereby
insisting that the wisdom they express springs eternally from the depths of true ex-
istence. These eternal sounds of wisdom are heard in the heart of every person open
to the sacredness of existence. They are neither the creation of human beings nor
the exclusive possession of any person; they are the sounds of wisdom issuing from
the very heart of existence itself.
As the wisdom of life, the Veda is that knowledge of the sacred that fulfills
human existence. This wisdom is found in the hearts of great persons—the rsis or
seers—whose experience has taken them to the inner core of existence and nour-
ished their spiritual life. Since this wisdom is achieved through the deepest and
most profound possible human experience, it extends as far as humanity itself; it
was heard by the very first human beings even as it is heard by us today when we
reach into the depths of our humanity. It is in this respect that the Veda is timeless,
being simultaneously eternal and contemporary.
Although in principle the Vedas are timeless and authorless, tradition ac-
cords a special place to the four collections of texts known as Rg Veda, Sama Veda,
Yajur Veda, and Atharva Veda. The first collection, the Rg Veda, contains expres-
sions of profound spiritual experiences of seers and saints in poetic form. These
verses were incorporated into the belief and feeling systems of the people as sacred
liturgy. Eventually, perhaps by about 1500 B.C.E., some 10,000 verses were gath-
ered together into a single collection known as the Rg Veda (wisdom verses). Subse-
quently, the Sama Veda, a collection of songs incorporating mostly Rg Vedic verses,
was established for use in the sacred rites. The Yajur Veda is a collection of liturgical
formulas and chants, many incorporating verses from the Rg Veda. Still later, an-
other collection of wisdom texts, rather different in character and not based pri-
marily on the Rg Veda, was brought together to form the Atharva Veda.

2
All references in this chapter are to the Rg Veda (as translated by the author) unless noted otherwise.
Roots of the Indian Way: Indus and Vedic Beginnings 25

These “wisdom collections” or Vedas have four integral parts: (1) the verses
themselves (Mantra sa∂hita); (2) ritually oriented commentaries (BrahmaΔas),
which provide explanations for the ritual use and meaning of the verses; (3) ritual
and theological speculation (AraΔyakas), which explain the deeper truth of the
symbols and images of the rituals; and (4) the Upanisads, which approach the great
mysteries of spiritual existence through concentrated mental effort, meditation,
and philosophical reflection. All four parts—Mantras, BrahmaΔas, AraΔyakas,
and Upanisads—are Veda in the sense of sacred wisdom. They are all ∏ruti (that
which is “heard”), both in the heart of the seer and in the heart of the hearer listen-
ing to the seer speak from the heart. But we will follow the common practice of re-
ferring only to the first portion, the mantra collection, as Veda, treating the other
parts as distinct texts. Where helpful, explanations from the BrahmaΔas and
AraΔyakas will be referred to in this attempt to understand the Vedic verses. The
Upanisads will be considered separately, in Chapter 4.
The verses of the Rg Veda, the primary wisdom collection, vibrate with the
energies of creation. Like all melodies, they convey and create far more than any
associated conceptual meaning can suggest. Their melodious and rhythmic vibra-
tions resonate with the reverberations of cosmos-creating energies. Participating in
this creation, the seers found words, rhythms, and melodies with the power to open
the human heart, mind, and feelings to these same vibrant world-creating energies.
Through the liturgy of sacrificial celebration, these mantric sounds, melodies, and
rhythms allowed the Vedic people to join in the process of cosmic creation—partic-
ularly self-creation and the creation of community.
Liturgy combines the joyous melodies of song and chant with the symbolic
actions of ritual re-creation and sanctification. Vision of reality, vibrant sound of
creation, and rhythm of human participation are all combined in the liturgical act.
The liturgical nature of the Vedas cannot be overemphasized. These verses are in-
tended to be recited, sung, and chanted, not read. We all know that a verse recited
affects us more profoundly than does the same verse read and that a lyric sung has
beauty and power that the same lyric read or recited cannot approach. Similarly,
the liturgical combination of thought and action that unites feeling and under-
standing in the ritual re-enactment of primordial creation and sanctification has
the power to transform our existence through participation in our own creation far
beyond that of ordinary actions and words.
The fact that the verses of the Vedas are poetic in form and liturgical in func-
tion warns us against trying to reduce them to strictly rational forms or literal
meanings. This sacred wisdom goes far beyond mere intellectual knowledge; it is
wisdom heard and felt in the hearts of the great seers and expressed by them in
poem and song so that it might resound in the hearts of all people, awakening them
to the tremendousness, mysteriousness, and joy of their own being as they partici-
pate in cosmic creation.
The language that the poet-seers had to express what they heard in their
hearts was ordinary language—language evolved to deal with the ordinary visible
world. But they used this language in new ways that were poetic, musical,
metaphorical, and highly symbolic, creating vehicles of sound that could carry the
hearer into the heart of the creative process of human becoming.
26 Chapter 2

It is very difficult for us, sharing fully in neither the ordinary Vedic world-
view nor the extraordinary vision of the seers, to understand this language and to
feel its power. We must constantly remind ourselves that the Vedic myths and sym-
bols have their own logic. When we approach them with the logic of linear rational
thinking and attempt to force them into conceptual equivalents, we gain clarity and
precision at an exorbitant price. The original integrity and richness is lost, and with
that is lost also the power of these verses to transform life.
This does not mean that the Vedas are irrational or that they should be ap-
proached irrationally. Far from it. These verses are filled with meaning that we
must seek to understand in various ways at different levels. But after discovering
the conceptual meanings of the central symbols and myths, we must attempt to
enter sympathetically into the spirit of the text and to hear its voice. Difficult as it
may be, we must try to enter into the inner experiences and imaginings that are ex-
pressed with such beauty and power in the Vedas, for these sacred verses have
given enduring shape to the Indian way.

Contemporary Quality
Fortunately, not all the Vedic verses are remote from us. Some appear directly rele-
vant to the contemporary worldwide quest to enter more fully and creatively into
life. Indeed, one of the reasons why the Vedas are still relevant to the Indian way
today is that the ancient seers were responding to basic questions that all human
beings seek to answer—regardless of time or place. This gives the Vedas a kind of
timelessness that makes some of the verses seem almost contemporary. The follow-
ing verses suggest this timelessness.
Do we not all yearn for intelligence and love, for health and wealth, for per-
suasive speech and happy days? Except that the following verse of Grtsamada is
addressed to Indra, it might stand as a timeless and universal human petition:
Grant us, O Indra, the greatest of treasures:
A good mind and happy love,
Increased wealth and a healthy body,
Persuasive speech and happy days.
(2.21.6.6)

The profundity and tenderness of human love expressed so beautifully by

the groom to his bride in the following verse is as appropriate to a marriage cere-
mony today as it was three thousand years ago:
I am song, you are verse.
I am Heaven, you are Earth.
We two shall live here together
Becoming the parents of children.
(Atharva Veda, 14.2.71)

The emphasis on friendship in the community of all existence expressed by

the poet in the following verse could well serve as an inspiration for a contemporary
ecological awareness and as a basic principle for a new eco-moral system:
Roots of the Indian Way: Indus and Vedic Beginnings 27

O Great One, make me great.

May all beings see me as a friend;
May I see all beings as friends;
May we all see one another as friends.
(Yajur Veda, 36.18)

The following verse, inquiring into the origins of existence, speaks to us in

our present concern to discover the ontological roots of our being:

Neither existence nor non-existence was there then;

Neither air-filled space nor sky beyond was there.
What enveloped all? Where? Under whose protection?
(10.129)

The insight that the plurality of existence is an expression of a deeper unity,

that all things are united in their source, an insight found in the thinking of many
great philosophers—and that, as a basic intuition, guides much work in the con-
temporary sciences—is poetically expressed in the following Rg Vedic verses:

That which is One the sages call by many names;

They call it Indra, Mitra, VaruΔa,
Agni or the heavenly Sun-bird.
(1.164.46)

With their words the wise poets shape the One

Into many forms: Agni, Yama, or Matari∏van.
(10.114.5)

Yet another Rg Vedic verse reveals that for all their concern with profound
and spiritual matters, the poet-seers also had a keen appreciation of the ordinary
ways of human beings as they strive for their own wealth, success, and power:

Many are the ways of human beings;

Our thoughts go off in many ways.
The wheel-maker hopes for accidents,
The doctor for an injured person,
The priest for a rich benefactor.
Flow Indu, flow for the sake of Indra.
. . .
Day after day the blacksmith seeks
customers with plenty of gold.
. . .
I’m a singer, Dad’s a doctor,
Mama grinds flour with a grindstone.
Our thoughts are all for profit,
As we plod along like cows.
Flow Indu, flow for the sake of Indra.
. . .
28 Chapter 2

The horse wants a swift chariot,

The entertainer a good laugh,
The penis a hairy slot,
And the frog a stagnant pond.
Flow Indu, flow for the sake of Indra.
(9.112.1–4)

GODS AND GODDESSES

Although the foregoing verses suggest areas of shared concerns and perspectives,
much of the Rg Veda seems more remote to us. For example, one of the first things
we notice when turning to the text is that most of the verses are addressed to Gods
or Goddesses. This fact has led many interpreters to think that the Vedas are essen-
tially texts for worship or sacrifice in which the deities are invoked to gain their help
and protection. The Gods and Goddesses are mistakenly assumed to be nothing
more than anthropomorphized beings, projected into a heavenly realm from which,
by some kind of ritual magic, they can intercede on human behalf. Although con-
taining an element of truth, this interpretation fails to reveal the deeper significance
of the Gods and Goddesses as symbols of the fundamental powers of existence.
Indra, Agni, and Soma; Surya, Usas, and Savitr; VaruΔa, VisΔu, and Vac—
the names of the many Vedic deities roll off the tongue creating mysterious feelings
of power and awe. Who are these deities? What is their function? Why are they so
important to the Vedic people?
The word for God offers an important clue. Deva means “shining” or “aus-
picious.” This is precisely what the Gods are; they are the auspicious powers that
create and destroy life, controlling the flow and ebb of existence. Speech, con-
sciousness, life, wind, fire, and water—these are among the great powers control-
ling the pulse of existence that are personified, symbolized, and celebrated as Gods
in the Vedas. The range of deities recognized and celebrated by the seers reveals the
range of auspicious powers they felt and recognized. The significance and impor-
tance of the various Devas tells us a great deal about the perceived significance and
importance of these various powers in Vedic life.
Because it is the power symbolized by a God or Goddess that is emphasized,
personal characteristics of the deities are usually ignored. For most deities, no im-
portant biographical data are given; nothing about their origins, and next to nothing
about their personalities, are indicated. There is no sense of a divine family or of a
hierarchy of power among the deities. Despite their lack of personality, however, the
Vedic deities are not abstract, for the powers they symbolize are directly experienced
by every person, and the God or Goddess lives in the immediate experience.
A brief examination of a few major deities will help us to understand the
Vedic conception of the Gods and Goddesses better. Agni, for example, is the God
of Fire and Lord of the great fire rituals central to Vedic religion. The word agni
means “fire,” suggesting that the Vedic people saw fire as a wonderful and awe-
some power. As lightning, it pierces both heaven and earth, joining them into a
cosmic unity. Out of control, it destroys dwellings and consumes forests, animals,
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
 FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
 Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
 The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

 This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
 “We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
 Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
 BRAZIER

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

 FINISHING THE BOTTOM

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

 LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
 Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

 BEATING THE BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN