Читать книгу The Story of Oriental Philosophy - Elizabeth Louisa Moresby - Страница 7

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WHAT was the method of education for the three great castes? The first care was to form character. Intellectual education took a second place, but with certain knowledge of the caste and destination of the pupil intellectual education was a direct progress on a charted road, and it was unnecessary to fill the mind with wagonloads of indigestible knowledge shoveled in in case they might come in useful later. All effort could be directed to a clearly seen end.

“Having taken up the pupil that he may lead him to the Highest, the teacher shall impart the ways of cleanliness, purity and chastity of body, with good manners and morals. And he shall teach him how to tend the fires sacrificial and culinary and, more important than all, how to perform his daily devotions.”

It was a part of character-building that the home of the teacher was the university. The pupil became part of the family—a family naturally of high standing because of the honor attached by caste and public feeling to the position of the Brahmin. A filial tenderness traditionally subsisted between pupil and tutor. All this was no small thing. It was the pupil’s duty to earn his food and sometimes his teacher’s by the mendicancy that from remote antiquity has been a sacred part of Indian life.

There was nothing humiliating in this, and the gift of food was the part that citizens took in the duties of education. To give was and is considered a boon; for that reason the mendicant monks in Burma (who all teach the boys) return no thanks for what is given. They have conferred an obligation. To the student, however rich his family, this was a training in the wealth of that Lady Poverty whom St. Francis of Assisi adored. There were rules, however:

“He should at first beg from his own mother or sister or his mother’s sister, from whom he may not feel shame or shyness in taking. Later, he should not beg among the family and relations of his preceptor but from the houses in the neighboring town and the good householders in whose homes the sacrifices enjoined by the Vedas are kept alive. And having secured the needed food and no more, he should present it to his preceptor and then, with his permission, should eat, facing east, after the customary mouth-rinsing and purification.”

Much stress was laid on manners, and who can sufficiently regret the cruel and disastrous loss of this education in modern life? Those taught in India had not the formalities of China and Japan, but seem to contain the root of the matter: the selflessness of the gentleman; the obedience which is the training for authority.

“Tell the truth, but pleasantly and gently. Do not tell it rudely, for truth-telling that hurts and repels does not carry conviction, but is only a display of aggressive egotism. Yet never tell a pleasing falsehood. Such is the ancient law.”

“Affluence, good birth and breeding, high deeds with much experience, knowledge—these are the five titles to honor. Each succeeding one is higher than the preceding.”

The code of manners included reverence to elders, tenderness to the young, and affection to equals. A good deal of friction, in both daily life and business was thus spared, and boys were fitted to hold every position with dignity. Health was also made an important branch of training. The science of Yoga was devised to control health and vitality. It included certain forms of asceticism—a training the modern world begins very slowly and painfully to recognize as necessary. Perfect continence was insisted upon during student life. And it is suggested that the total physical life will be four times as long as the period of continence observed before the duties of the householder as regards procreation and family life are taken up. Manu puts this point strongly:

“Because of the neglect of Veda-knowledge and permitting the right knowledge to decay, because of abandoning the right way, because of mistakes in food and because of careless failure in continence, does death prevail over the knowers.”

Thus hunger and desire, two primal human motives, were to receive the strictest training, and knowledge on these points was to be a part of the education of the young. Full directions were given as to the quality of foods and for the disciplining of reproductive energy.

Here I must quote the interpretation by Bhagavan Das of the Laws of Manu (though I shall return to the subject in consideration of the system of Yoga), which gives a strong reason for continence during pupilage.

“If any subdivisional part or cell ceases to subdivide further and remains undivided [through continence] it may continue to do so for an indefinitely long time and become comparatively immortal. Such is the promise of teaching, walking in the path of Brahma, storing up and perfecting the germ and source of life and all vitality and power, the potency and principle of infinite reproduction and multiplication, and also storing up and perfecting the seed of knowledge, which again is power and has also the potency within it of infinite expansion.”

It will be seen that it is not this teaching which has led to the early marriages of India and the resulting misery and deterioration. Neither the unwholesome and too early devoured fruit of the body nor that of the mind had any place in the system of Manu. The duties of the householder were enjoined when he was in his prime, not otherwise. For those who had another vocation a way of escape was provided to what was thought to be an even higher sphere of duty, and the ascetic became the power-station of the race; from him men would derive light and strength. He would be the master of supernormal powers. It was taught that after a certain stage of this knowledge the energy latent in food would function on a plane more subtle than the physical and be transmuted into finer, more intellectual and spiritual energies. I shall return to this most interesting subject later.

It is impossible to give details of study here. It included the classics of the race and education as to man’s position in relation to the universe. Nearly all this was conveyed in the form of carefully planned aphorisms easily remembered. Much attention was given to acoustics and phonetics, and in teaching grammar, philology, and physiology in a condensed form much was necessarily included. Rhetoric, logic, and reasoning were important. Manu says, agreeing curiously with the views of Confucius:

“All meanings, ideas, intentions, desires, emotions, items of knowledge are embodied in speech, are rooted in it and branch out of it. He who misappropriates, misapplies, and mismanages speech, mismanages everything.” A profound truth.

The study of the Vedic books was interspersed with these secular subjects, but separate days were given to each so that the pupil’s mind might not be hurried from one subject to another. For posture, he must stand upright, hands folded on the chest. Since there were no books, memory and vocal power were highly developed and eyesight spared. The holidays were short and frequent, and many depended on atmospheric and magnetic conditions, which were closely studied and given special importance in connection with special studies.

We learn from the Puranas that martial exercises, wrestling, fencing, archery, mock fights, foot and horse races, the management of horses, camels, bulls, and elephants, were all part of the training according to the type of student. Manu taught that rhythmic and considered movement is good. “Let him not move his hands and feet and eyes restlessly and crookedly. Let him not think of always outracing others and injuring them.”

It is strange to consider that all athletics were considered to be a part of the lower division of divine knowledge. And this belief is not wholly dead in Asia. The ju-jutsu of Japan, for instance, has a very singular occult side that is not known to all the Japanese who practice it. I have had interesting talks on this, in Japan.

But we must leave the schools for adult life. It will be easily realized what emphasis must be laid in such communities on the perfection of family life, and it is interesting to compare it with the later and lower Greek ideals.

“The whole duty of husband and wife to each other is that they do not anger each other nor wander apart in thought, word, or deed until death. And the promise is that those who righteously fulfil this duty are not parted by the death of the body, but shall be together beyond death.”

“Let the widow follow the Brahmin teaching, improving soul and body by study and the service of the elders. Let her triumph over her body and walk in the ways of purity....”

“And if the wife be noble of soul and the husband ignoble, and still she wills to die a widow for his sake, then shall her giant love and sacrifice grip his soul and drag it from the depths of sin and darkness to the kingdoms of light....”

“The mother exceeds a thousand fathers in the right to reverence and in the function of education. Good women should be honored and worshiped like the gods. By the favors and powers of true women are the three worlds upheld.”

So must the husband and wife be souls like twin flames illumining all about them. It was not a question of equality between them but of identity. And here is the ideal marriage, from which noble children were to be expected. The description is drawn from the Vishnu Purana and the Vishnu Bhâgavata. It is great poetry as well as great truth.

“She is Language; he is Thought. She is Prudence; he is Law. He is Reason; she is Sense. She is Duty; he is Right. He is Author; she is Work. He is Patience; she is Peace. He is Will; she is Wish. He is Pity; she is Gift. He is Song; she is the Note. She is Fuel; he is Fire. She is Glory; he is Sun. She is Motion; he is Wind. He is Owner; she is Wealth. He is Battle; she is Might. He is Lamp; she is Light. He is Day; she is Night. He is Justice; she is Pity. He is Channel; she is River. She is Beauty; he is Strength. She is Body; he is Soul.”

This is a passage of extraordinary beauty and insight in its recognition of the primitive nature of women as contrasted, not to dishonor but to honor, with that of man.

In a singular passage the Law of the Manavas declares the right of primogeniture on the ground that the eldest son is the child of dharma, i.e. of duty and necessity. The children born after him are those of earthly desire. He is therefore, in the absence of his father, father of all the younger ones.

The elasticity of the caste system under the Laws of Manu as opposed to its modern rigidity is very noticeable. The three castes interchange food and fire, dwell in the house of the teacher together, beg food together and mostly from Vaishya homes, for to the Vaishya (merchant) caste (the third) fell the special duty of providing food for guests and the community. The Brahmin vowed to poverty could exert himself thus for none but those in real distress. But a rule was compelled to be laid down as regards the Shudra, the lowest caste, and this naturally; for the Shudras were exempt from much of the strict discipline forced upon the three upper castes. Yet even here the liberality of the teaching will astonish those who know modern India.

“One’s own plowman, an old friend of the family, one’s own cowherd, one’s own servant, one’s own barber, and whosoever else may come for refuge and offer service; from the hands of all such Shudras may food be taken.”

These could be trusted for good-will and cleanliness, therefore from them nourishment could be accepted. One is reminded of Ramakrishna, the saint of modern India who died some thirty or forty years since. He knew by instinct the spiritual purity or impurity of the hands from which his food had come, and rejected or accepted it accordingly.

“This comes from a good man. I can eat it,” he would say.

“For after doubt and debate,” say the Laws of Manu, “the gods decided that the food-gift of the money-lending Shudra who was generous of heart was equal in quality to the food-gift of a Brahmin who knows all the Vedas but is small of heart. The food-gift of that Shudra is purified by the generous heart, while that of the Brahmin is wholly befouled by the lack of good-will.”

Much has been made, to the discredit of the ancient system, of the ritual impurity imposed upon households in cases of disease and death. The cause was that all diseases were regarded as infectious in the sense that they affected the health of those drawn into their atmosphere. All strong disturbing emotions were infections, whether for good or evil, and in case of fear and sorrow aloofness was judged best. Ten days of impurity were fixed for the Brahmin family, twelve for the Kshatriya, fifteen for the Vaishya, thirty for the Shudra, apportioned according to the trust the community placed in each caste.

Another strange and significant circumstance in the Puranas is the admission that in earlier Yugas (cycles) it was possible for whole families and tribes to change into the higher castes; and this is followed by the confession that the confusion of castes is now so complete that many a gentle and noble soul born in the Shudra caste may in truth belong to a higher. In the great and ancient epic, the Mahabharata, the Pandava king Yudhisthira says:

“Nor birth nor sacraments nor study nor ancestry can decide whether a person is twice-born. Character and conduct only can decide.”

And the Laws of Manu pronounce:

“By the power of self-denial, acting selectively on the potencies of the primal seed in all, persons born in one caste may change into a higher or by the contradiction of self-denial, by self-indulgence, and selfishness may descend into a lower. The pure, the upward-aspiring, the gentle-speaking, the free from pride, who live with and like the Brahmins and the other twice-born castes continually—even such Shudras shall attain those higher castes.”

India has fallen far from this grace. What might happen in a man’s lifetime under certain conditions has now become a matter of long evolution and rebirths.

For the learned there was a voluntary poverty which all could understand and honor. How should a man have time to seek wealth whose body and soul and strength were absorbed in the effort “to follow knowledge like a sinking star”? The Brahmin therefore was exempted from personal effort for livelihood. His living would come from the reverent offerings of food and clothing, from the community which owed him so much as the second father and educator of their children. Yet in the extraordinary honor, as of an earthly god, paid to the Brahmin it is easy to see the germ of what was to become the enslavement of India. It was not so easy then. The theory is noble. Life did not offer so many temptations. Public opinion being small and local could concentrate in a ray of fire upon the Brahmin who misjudged or misused the grandeur of his position; but yet the end was sure where human power was so exalted. Under the Buddha India made one last despairing struggle to cast off the yoke of Brahminism, and failing, accepted her doom with the apathy which still dominates her.

The duty of the Kshatriya (warrior, ruler) is summed up in the description of Kalidasa:

“He who guards the weak from injury by the strong: how shall he be a king who does otherwise? What shall the man do with his life if it be blasted by ill-fame and the unanswered cry for help of the suffering?”

So it was inculcated in the Laws of Manu that the whole duty of the Kshatriya is protection, charity, sacrifices, study, and non-addiction to pleasure. Could such an ideal realize itself on earth? Only here and there, and then against an oncoming sea of temptation. Many instructions of the highest type are given as to the care of the people—their food, clothing, recreation, and the care of orphans, widows, and helpless persons. A tax on the industrial classes supported the king and the Kshatriya class, who represented the defense of the nation. It varied from one-fourth in times of stress to one-tenth in times of ease. Out of this all public servants and institutions were maintained, including the amusements of the people. Brahmins and ascetics not supported by public gifts received their share.

It is interesting to consider here what form of government the Laws of Manu inculcate. Certainly not a democratic one. Equally certainly not an autocratic one. The Kshatriya king did not rule autocratically. He may be described as being at the head of a council composed of the highly educated and experienced Brahmins. He must himself follow the teaching of the Vedas in his rule.

“But where it is not explicit or new legislation becomes necessary, then what the well-instructed and perfected Brahmins declare to be the law, that shall be the law. They are the well-instructed who have acquired knowledge and thus have the power to make visible the physical and superphysical truths of revelation. That which an assembly of ten such, or of three at least, may decide to be law shall be taken for law.”

Later this number might be increased; there might be a number of each caste, and in an assembly of twenty-one one Shudra must be present. It is of great interest to consider these provisions and to contrast them with the modern conception of untrained legislators chosen by the votes of uneducated electors—uneducated in the truest and possibly only real sense of the word. Coöperation among the differentiated and disciplined is a very different conception from government by the majority.

We now come to the system of punishments laid down in this ancient social order, and here the view departs strangely from that of the modern world.

“The king who punishes the innocent and does not punish the guilty gathers infamy here and shall descend into the hells hereafter. The first degree of punishment he can inflict is warning by word of mouth. The second, public warning and degradation in status. The third, fine and forfeiture in addition to these. The last, corporal punishment (ranging from whipping to death and including imprisonment, infliction of wounds, branding, and mutilation).”

Where a common man guilty of wrong-doing might be fined a trifle, a ruler, a person in authority, should be awarded a sentence a thousand times more heavy. The punishment of the Vaishya (merchant) should be twice as heavy as that of the Shudra (laborer). The punishment of the Kshatriya (warrior, ruler) twice as heavy again. The punishment of the Brahmin should be twice as heavy as that of the Kshatriya or even four times as heavy, “for he knows the far-reaching consequences of sin and merit.” The king must restore to all four castes the property stolen from them by thieves. If he fails to do so the sin of the thief passes to the king. “By confession, repentance, by self-imposed penances, study, and gifts of charity, the sinner and the criminal wash away their crimes. The man who is held to punishment by the king becomes cleansed in truth from all stain of his offense when he has paid the penalty. He is restored to his original status and goes to heaven like the doers of good deeds.”

In other words the criminal is not called upon to pay twice over in the original punishment and in all loss of public confidence. Paid is paid. The receipt is written, and the debtor to society goes out free from henceforth.

The system of warning to first offenders has only just been rediscovered in modern jurisprudence. The records of English law (which certainly hold no bad preëminence) reek with terrible punishments inflicted upon juvenile offenders, going even so far as capital punishment for trifling offenses, and this through the eighteenth century. The principle of severer punishment for an educated man also invites deep consideration. One may well smile in remembering certain well-known cases of recent “justice” and their result.

Even the sacred, the venerated Brahmin was not exempt from corporal punishment. The Laws of Manu authorize every man to kill a Brahmin in self-defense or when caught in the act in certain cases. After he had fallen and lost caste for repeated offenses he would hold the position of a Shudra with regard to punishment.

With regard to the honor of different employments it is interesting to see that after the two highest castes, those occupied with wisdom and government, agriculture is placed first among the employments of the Vaishya (merchant) class.

“Agriculture. Cow-keeping. Trade.”

Thus it will be noticed that first in honor comes provision of the necessities of life and second its luxuries. And this leads us to the views held in the Laws of Manu on the subject of food. They are very well worth consideration today, when food is a question merely of liking and disliking and, in the long result, of the money which can be afforded.

“Do not give the messed leavings of food to any. Do not eat between the fixed and suitable meal-times. Do not eat while the last meal remains undigested. Do not go anywhere without ablution after a meal. Anxiously avoid overeating, for it wars against health, against the functioning of the higher mind, and therefore against the hope of heaven and the way of the virtuous; it breeds gross passions, and it is also against the rules of what is seemly and the equitable division of food amongst all who inhabit the world.

“As far as possible take the clean and bloodless foods. It is true that the mental inclination of the world on the path of pursuit is in the direction of flesh-foods and spirituous drinks, and physical loves and lusts; and it may be said there is not sin in these, especially in regulated forms (and for the Kshatriya and Shudra). But refraining from them brings high result. Flesh cannot be had without the slaughter of animals, and the slaughter of breathing beings does not lead to heaven. Therefore flesh-foods should be avoided. The man who has no will to bind and torture and slay innocent living beings, who wishes well to all, shall be blessed with enduring joy. And he who slays none shall achieve what he thinks, what he plans, what he desires, successfully and without pain.”

It has long been clear to me that the perception involved in this law is reached only in a certain stage of evolution and psychic development. For this difference in status the Law of Manu appears to make allowance. To live by bloodshed is not a crime but an ignorance and an almost incalculable loss. Happy are those who attain the higher plane.

So, as to the Brahmin fell the duty of providing the food of the spirit, to the Vaishya (merchant) fell that of providing the no less necessary food of the body, pure, uncontaminated, and infused by the spirit of good-will and recognition of deep responsibility to the community. Food itself had its aspect of divinity.

So also of the tiller of the soil:

“The dharma that any man performs, the merit of good works that anyone gathers—three parts of the merit belong to him who provides the food that is the support of the worker of merit, and one only to the doer himself.”

This is high ground. Again, how far from the modern conception!

There are errors and follies in the Laws of Manu from many points of view. There are certain points unadaptable to the complexities of modern life. There is, however, much worth reflection from the point of view of the philosophy of social organization; in nothing more than in their conception of the right distribution of the four castes in a state. The bulk of the people must not be Brahmins, they must not be Kshatriyas. Least of all must they be Shudras. They must be Vaishyas (merchants and agriculturalists), for they represent the ultimate needs of the community—its relation to the earth, to concrete science and economics. They are the physical brain and system of the community. They represent the middle class of modern life. They, “twice-born” also, with a high practical training in psychological science, bound to the duties of sacrifice, charity, and study, were by far the larger part of the population.

The Shudra was the “little brother” of the community, and I think he compares favorably with the Greek slave, as regards duties and rights. The higher responsibilities were not expected from him, though he might assume them if he could. He was the substance out of which in other births great leaders might develop, but not yet.

But a warning not wholly inapplicable to the democratic ideal exists in the Laws of Manu:

“The kingdom in which Shudras preponderate over the twice-born and in which error and lack of the higher wisdom are therefore rampant—that kingdom shall surely perish before long, oppressed with the horrors of misgovernment.”

A sharp contrast between the opinions of the Indo-Europeans and their cousins the Indo-Aryans must be noted here. The four castes of the community were divided by the measure of spiritual and intellectual attainment. The wisest must lead. The laws of Solon, wisest of the Greeks, the first codified laws of Europe, also recognized four classes, but they were graded according to income. The wealthy had the higher offices, the poorer the lower. It may be said that this striking contrast in aim marks the vast spiritual gulf still dividing Asia from Europe.

Why, with laws and aims higher than those of the Republic of Plato, is India what it is? Many reasons may be given. The inevitable deterioration of faith seen in all countries, repeated invasions and the thrust of the lower ideals of conquerors, division of races, conflicts of religion and national spirit, and, last but not least, a foreign ideal of education, wholly unsuited to the national genius, imposed upon them (as far as it has gone) in the sacred name of Lord Macaulay and others of the same limitation in knowledge and sympathy.