The period of the Epics succeeded the period of the Upanishads. In the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, philosophical doctrines were presented in the form of stories and parables. In these poems of the heroic age recounting the qualities and exploits of exalted individuals the Vedic gods are no longer supreme. Some have disappeared altogether. Indra retains a place of some dignity; but Brahma, Siva and Vishnu have risen to pre-eminence. Even of these three, the first becomes subordinate. Vishnu and Siva become the out- standing entities and are alternately elevated to supreme dignity and very often their ultimate oneness is proclaimed. Vishnu in the Vedas was the friend and companion of Indra and strode over the universe in three paces; in the Epics he often becomes the great deity of destruction as well as of renovation. Each of these two gods in his turn contends with and subdues the other; now one, now the other, receives the homage of his rival; and each in turn is lauded and honoured as the greatest of gods.
The Avatars
The Avatars, incarnations of Vishnu, assume a prominent place in the Epics, and more so in the Puranas. The first three, Matsya (fish), Kurma (tortoise) and Varaha (boar) have a cosmic character and are foreshadowed in the hymns of the Vedas. The fourth incarnation, Narasimha (man-lion), seems to belong to a later age, when the worship of Vishnu had become established. The fifth, Vamana (dwarf), whose three strides deprived the Asuras of the domination of heaven and earth, is in character anterior to the fourth Avatar and the three strides are attributed to Vishnu in the Vedic text as Urukrama. The sixth, seventh and eighth, Parasurama. Rama and Krishna are mortal heroes whose exploits are celebrated in these poems so fervently as to raise the heroes to the rank of gods. The ninth Avatar, the Buddha, is the deification of a great teacher. The tenth, Kalki, is yet to come; he resembles the manifestation referred to in the Biblical Revelation.
The system of religious thought propounded in the Vedas and the Epics and especially in the Bhagavad-Gita (a part of the Mahabharata) survived the Buddhist impact which led to a renunciation of much ritual and metaphysics on the part of a sizable proportion of the population. Buddhism was absorbed into the parent religion within a few centuries and Hinduism, as the Vedic religion had come to be called, adopted the theory of the Avatars or incarnations according to which the Buddha himself was accepted as Avatar. Jainism also became, in essence, a doctrinal modification and adaptation of the Vedic religion.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق