APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A.

The word Veda means knowing or knowledge in the original Sanscrit, the sacred language of the Hindoos. Max Muller, with others, considers the Rig-Veda as the oldest, and indeed the original from whence the others were chiefly derived. The Yagur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, are mostly liturgies or hymns for sacrificial occasions. Rig, or Rich, is from a Sanscrit root meaning to celebrate, and the ten books of the Rig-Veda contain about a thousand hymns, and for at least 2,500 years their verses and words have been carefully counted and memorized in the schools of the Brahmins, and countless commentaries have been written upon them.

The first Ashtaka, or book, of the Rig-Veda has been translated by H. H. Wilson, F. R. S., &c, an eminent English scholar and resident in India, and his work is published in London, under the patronage of the Directors of the East India Company. Max Muller, Professor in Oxford University, and eminent in character and learning, has published a part of his translation. Rev. J. Stevenson, D. D., of London, has published, under the auspices of the Oriental Translation Fund, his translation of a part of the Sama-Veda, made after a residence in India. From these sources, and from the Progress of Religious Ideas by Mrs. L. M. Child, I have made my extracts. The hymn to Agni, page 9, and the two following, are from Wilson; for the rest from the Rig Veda, I have used Muller, except as parts thereof may be with other Vedas, from Mrs. Child's valuable work. Harug, Rosen, Burnouf, and others,

have rendered valuable aid by research and translation, and the work of Muller now in progress will give us the fullest translation of these ancient books.

Dr. Harug, an eminent authority, dates the Vedic period in which these books were composed and collected, at from 1,200 to 2,400 B. C., and the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda at 2,400 B. C. Muller says we cannot well assign a later date than from 1,200 to 1500 B. C., supposes that writing was unknown at the date of the oldest hymns, and calls the Rig Veda "most venerable of Books."

Brahmins trace back the Vedas 4,000 years, and Sir William Jones dates them about 1,580 B. C., or more than a century before Moses.

The Code or Institutes of Menu, or Manu, dates probably from 900 to 1,200 B. C.

Of course, there can be no exactness in such remote dates, but the opinion of the best authorities leaves little doubt that the Rig Veda is the oldest of all Sacred Books. It is the Bible of Brahminism, and Muller says that India "is saturated with the idea of revelation;" although there is a wide departure from the simple purity of these old Vedic teachings.

The Vedas know no idols, and teach a consciousness of sin which the divine powers can remove, if repentance be real, and prayer and sacrifice be observed. Personal immortality is taught in some of the hymns. The transmigration of souls would seem a later idea of Brahminism. The great sacrifice of the juice of the Soma, or moon-plant, is the occasion for many of the Vedic hymns. The idea of One God is taught. Rig Veda, hymn 164, says: "They call Him Indra, Mithra, Varuna, Agni; that which is One the wise call it in divers names." Sometimes each of these is called the God. The thought of a Great Soul and Cause seems present, yet mingled with a personification of Nature's attributes and powers; Indra is sunlight; Agni fire, and messenger; Varuna is day; Ushas dawn; Murats Storms, &c. Rakshakas are evil spirits, Rishis saints, and sometimes spirits of the departed. Of later date are

Shasters, Puranas, Brahmanas, and many other works, in which are gradually brought out the strange mythology mingled with the great truths of Brahminism; such for instance as the following from the Ramayana: "The sacrifice of a thousand horses has been put in the balance with the true word, and that one true word weighed down the balance. No virtue surpasses veracity. It is by truth alone that men attain to the highest realms of bliss. There are two roads that conduct to perfect virtue; to be true, and to do no evil to any creature."

Father Bouchet, a Catholic missionary in Hindostan, found the Trinity and the incarnation of the second person thereof taught there. Brahm, the Infinite, was manifest through Brahma and Vishnu, the preserving powers, and Siva the destroyer, in Brahminical teachings, and Whittier has well interpreted their idea:

"For wisely taught the Hindoo seer,
Destroying Siva, forming Brahm,
Who woke by turns earth's love and fear,
Were one, the same."

Incarnations of Vishnu were a part of their belief.

The BHAGVAT GEETA, or Dialogues between Kreeshna, or Chrishna, an incarnation of Deity, and his disciple Arjoun, is dated by Sir William Jones at 3,000 B. C.

This is probably too ancient a date, but the fact that only the three oldest books of the Vedas are mentioned in it would indicate a high antiquity.

I have used the translation of Charles Wilkins, A. D. 1785. He was an Englishman in the employ of the East India Company, and a letter of endorsement of his ability and character, and of the excellence of his work, from the well-known Governor of India, Warren Hastings, is in the preface of the volume before me.

J. C. Gangooly, an educated Hindoo, a convert to Unitarianism, who visited this country some years ago, giving the Hindoo belief as to signs and wonders that attended the birth

of Chrishna, said that he was born in prison, and that: "In the presence of the heavenly babe the fetters that bound the prison broke; the cell began to dazzle, and joy overwhelmed the parents. A heavenly voice whispered to the father to fly with the child beyond the Jumna, which was done. The tyrant who sought to destroy the child sent messengers to kill the children in neighboring places." The similarity between this and other like traditions, and the New Testament narrative of Christ's lowly birth, and Herod's slaughter of the innocents, is noteworthy.

The remarkable extracts from the Bhagvat Geeta need no comment or illustration.

APPENDIX B.

Buddha is a title, meaning "The Enlightened." Buddhists teach that there have been several Buddhas, and may be more; men who become such by pure and true lives and high effort and endowment. Buddha, the great reformer, from whose influence Buddhism grew, was the son of a Prince, and was born at Kapilwarta, capital of his father's kingdom, at the foot of the Nepaul mountains, near the end of the Seventh Century before Christ.

A Siamese Life of Buddha says: "The Great, the Holy Lord, the Being who was about to become Buddha, passed the first twenty-nine years of his life as a layman by the name of Prince Sidharta (one who has attained his aim). He then became a religious mendicant, and for six years subjected himself to self-denials of a nature that other men could not endure. Thereafter he became the Lord Buddha, and gave to men and angels the draught of Immortality, which is the savor of the True Law. Forty-five years after this he entered the Holy Nirwana." He was also called Gautama, from the clan or tribe to which the family belonged. M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire gives 543 B. C, as the date of his death, and he lived about