Cover Story

The Golden Legend of India - Preface - William Henry Robinson

The work, herein styled GOLDEN LEGEND OF INDIA, is entirely based upon an ancient narrative of human life, contained in the very oldest—and therefore purest—sacred writings of Indian Antiquity. It is therein called "THE STORY OF SUNAHSEPHA," a Sanskrit name corresponding exactly to the Greek word "Cynosure," which, passing through most of the Western Aryan family of languages into English, denotes the northern Polar Star. From that star’s use as a guide by sea and land in the early migrations of mankind, the name has acquired in daily speech and metaphor the secondary meaning of a safe Celestial Guide. In both these senses it was evidently used in this story. The personage who bore it acquired the added name DEVARATA, i.e., "God-given"; under which, slightly modified, he is commemorated to this day as an ancestor, at family gatherings of the highest Brahman Castes of India. Hence, the sub-title in English, STORY OF INDIA’S GOD GIVEN CYNOSURE; and this title, as will be seen, represents the ancient scope and inner spirit of the whole Legend.

The Story (save for a brief poetic variant in Valmiki’s Ramayana), was first published in modern languages, through separate prose translations, by English (HH Wilson) and German (Roth) professors, in the year 1850 AD. It has been very much admired by all ever since, for its great literary merits; being "full of genuine thought and feeling," according to Max Muller, "and most valuable as a picture of life." All this is perfectly true, and is represented to the best of the present writer’s ability herein.

But no one, until the present publication, has treated of the Legend as a whole, i.e., including the text of its "Hundred verses from the sacred Rig-veda" with the succession of hours and ritual forms which they necessarily involve; although the original authors refer to them as prime factors of the legend’s efficiency.

Neither have previous writers considered—though cursorily mentioning as a fact—the Recitation of the legend, as an Ordained Rite at the grand Coronation Ceremonials, called RAJASUYAS, or "King-makings." These were always deemed necessary and very important, to inaugurate the successive kings who exercised suzerainty over ancient India’s varied and differing nationalities. They are minutely described in the Sanskrit books; and events at their recurrence form turning points in India’s two famous epic poems, and in the long subsequent periods of her written history.

The whole story, indeed, is framed upon the achievement, under divine guidance, of such a Rajasuya Celebration by Harischandra, a hero-king in the semi-mythic ages, whose name and fame in various aspects form inexhaustible themes for both classic and popular Indian stories, from ancient times to the present day.

The great sages of antiquity, who formulated the still enduring civil and religious laws of India—and were thus the real founders of Indian civilization—took the old traditions of Harischandra’s Rajasuya, and grouped around them a series of associated incidents. These were selected and specially adapted briefly to illustrate all, or nearly all, the fundamental principles whereon the peculiar customs, laws, and institutions that regulate the daily life of India’s princes and peoples were then based, and which still remain immovable. Chief among them are the germ principles of Family Kinship, Laws of Adoption, Caste Rules, Training of Brahmans and Princes, Righteous Civil Laws and Governments, with Rites and Ceremonies—all being founded on the early spiritual religion of India, before polytheism, image-worship, and general debasement prevailed in later ages.

These ideas and more, with many beautiful touches of human pathos, may be studied together in a genuine ancient original by English readers of the East or West who desire to understand and win the heart of India, centered as it is round the "STORY OF SUNAHSEPHA," the Cynosure. He submitted himself to be bound as a human sacrifice in atonement for faults of the king and his son Rohita. Being liberated, "for his patient endurance," he gained like liberation for those in whose behalf he was bound, and was himself also exalted to high dignity as a royal priest, to regulate future rites, and to celebrate those of Harischandra’s famous coronation. The whole story was ordained to be repeated as part of the grand religious rites at each subsequent Crowning of Indian Suzerain Kings, AT THE PRECISE RITUAL POINT WHERE A COPY OF THE HOLY BIBLE IS PRESENTED BY BISHOPS TO BRITISH SOVEREIGNS when crowned at Westminster.

In the hundred Rig-veda verses those to Varuna probably had a pre-Indian origin, in that far-away North, where the great Aryan family of nations long dwelt as one before dispersion into the various countries of Europe and Asia. This is partly indicated by their retention of a Divine Name (Asura) repudiated generally in the Veda, as denoting an evil being, but highly revered under various archaic forms by kindred and other peoples elsewhere—(e.g., as Ahura by Zendic Iranians, Aesir by Celts and Teutons—and Aesar by remote Etruscans). These hymns also first plainly express the main sacrificial theme of the series of verses and of the whole legend; which theme was also extant among pre-Indian Aryans, as testified by northern traces of it remaining—even of its recitation in "the king’s hall"—in the Elder Edda of Scandinavia, the Kalevala of Finland, and a fuller Teutonic variant, christianized in old German by Von Aue, an ancient Minnesinger, upon which Longfellow moulded his English "Golden Legend," which has striking coincidences with this of antique India.

All the verses are orderly arranged to represent the same sacrificial theme, by language and ritual of worship, as developed from time to time in Vedic India itself,—and also (it may be added) the origin and progress of devout feeling in the mind of an individual worshipper. The very precise Sanskrit rituals place their commencement while the inspired victim was bound to the sacrificial post, just after noontide, as at an ordinary spring season’s animal offering, and their continuance through daylight, evening dusk, darkness, midnight, and dawn, till the sunrise of a third day, when the delivered victim is called to officiate at a morning Soma festival, and perform the other rites of Harischandra’s Crowning at noon of that day.

The varied natural appearances at that season during these hours—their respective relations to terrestrial and celestial phenomena and to worship in India—which, though under various phases and names, was then addressed to ONE infinite in goodness and power (as shown in the Visvedeva verse at midnight)—are all reflected in the minutely exact terms of the verses. They are herein rendered with the literal accuracy due to what their believers hold to be words of divine revelation; but for modern readers their inner meaning is also elicited by explanations, conjoined, but separate from their actual text. Otherwise the writer—who seeks only to be a true rhymester, not a creative poet—might be thought to have introduced some Western notions, or bias, into the genuine ancient work. Its remarkable literary skill and vein of true poetry, belong, however, to those old FATHERS OF INDIA, and are such as to evoke high appreciation in the West, and national pride among the sacred Coronation Rites, its authors made it in effect an ANCIENT INDIAN STATE DOCUMENT of perpetual importance. In the vicissitudes of ages, it has ceased to be recited as of old. But its spirit has never passed away.

But neither, in spite of long centuries of misconstruction, has its letter. That too remains, reverenced and admired, though only as an old poet’s dream-story, beautiful indeed, but without coherence and inconsistent with itself. Such, indeed, was the view of Sayana, the HIndu commentator on the Rig-veda. He wrote in the 14th century AD., i.e., some 3,000 years, more or less, after the era of the old story, during which India had passed through revolution after revolution, each having some modifying influence upon its successors. The old Vedic system had then passed away, but had been professedly revived in the pseudo-Vedic, but idolatrous, Puranas, and Sayana, commenting on the story, said, "the hymns have no apparent connection with the Legend, and are not appropriate to the condition of a person in danger of death," using also other depreciatory terms.

The ipse dixit of Sayana has been too implicitly received by modern writers, both Eastern and Western, but without critical examination. This was excusable before complete accounts of old India’s coronation rites and ceremonies contained in the ancient ritual books were available to modern students. Its results have been, however, to discourage any recognition of the story and hymns, and by reducing them to the level of mere bardic songs at a convivial feast, after, not during the sacred religious rites, to miss their true relation to each other, and to the welfare of India, ancient and modern.

The whole Legend and its accessories are herein faithfully and amply discussed with the aid of translated notes from rituals and nearly coeval Sanskrit authorities. The work combines in one view a representation of the true poetry in the Sanskrit original, a literal interpretation of the story, and the commentary necessary for modern readers, to whom the ancient Vedas have become obscured somewhat by age. Its language is modern English, its ideas are all Indian. No phrases, and no similes, are consciously admitted which are not exact counterparts of the old Sanskrit; nor any ideas which might not have occurred to the acutely intellectual Brahman compilers. Even in passages reminiscent of Western theology (e.g., those with the word "ransom" and its associated ideas) the Indian reader may convince himself that he has a true equivalent both in letter and in spirit of the Sanskrit used by his great forefathers. Even in the "Epodes" interpolated after each Canto, and the "Odes" etc., of the later Cantos, distinguished by paragraph marks ([]), the same rule of adherence to Indian ideas is observed.

"England," says Sir WW Hunter, "can do India no greater injustice than not to understand her." And Max Muller, in presence of King Edward VII (then Prince of Wales, January 11, 1890) said that the true conquerors of the heart and affections of India, who are still to come, will be those who acquire insight into her ancient religion, her ancient laws, and her ancient literature, which are still the best key to present-day convictions. These subjects, in their true germ principles, are all epitomized and exemplified in this remarkable story, prepared for that express purpose, during the early ages of India’s making.

It is hoped that by the dispersion of its comparatively modern obscuration, through the genuine ancient light herein thrown upon the legend, English readers at home may be induced to regard Indian matters generally with a more sympathetic interest than hitherto, and it may also lead them to understand how so long an ancestral origin accounts for the tenacity wherewith India still clings to her old ideals and peculiar customs, and thus to treat them with the respect which is their due. At the same time Young India, which is gradually adopting Western modes of thought, perceiving the purity and righteousness pervading this old story of their own, as well as its omission of modern debasements, may draw a distinction between what is really old and what has no true claim to be considered so; and thus learn to refuse the evil and choose the good among Indian writings. If such, in any degree, be the results of this work its object will be so far obtained. The efficient rendering of such an ancient work depends in the first instance on the labors of profound linguists, without whom no accuracy could be attained; and their various translations have been fully and gratefully made use of in this work. But the task is not exclusively theirs. Says Max Muller, the foremost of his time among them, in his monumental first publication of the Rig-veda (vol.3, p. viii):—

"We must translate our feelings and ideas into their language at the same time that we translate their poems and prayers into our own. . . . What seems at first childish may at a happier moment disclose a sublime simplicity, and in helpless expressions we may recognize aspirations after some high and noble idea. When the scholar has done his work, the poet and the philosopher must take it up and finish it."

These rules are adhered to without any attempt to introduce extraneous poetry or philosophy. The whole is cast into a metrical form simply because no other seemed fit to express its many combined topics tersely and attractively in English. Every allusion and simile of the original is retained; and paraphrastic amplification is admitted only so far as supported by ancient authorities and where necessary to place the modern reader on the same level of understanding with its primitive Sanskrit-speaking audience.

Study of the whole Legend, in its threefold aspect as a story and sacred hymns combined with a stately ritual, in the light of its use as a Royal Instruction, has revealed an unexpected harmony. Alleged inconsistencies and discrepancies have disappeared. Each element of it illustrates the others, and even in minutiae of phrases and allusions the coincidences are too numerous to have been accidental, and prove the high intelligence and title to veneration of the Rishi Fathers of India who composed it, and ordained its high place among the most important of all state functions in ancient India.

Much more might be said; but, when it is added that the whole end and aim of the story was to induce Indian rulers to govern their lands in the fear of God, to submit themselves to His law, to respect the family institutions and civil customs of their varied peoples, and to train their successors to do the same, enough has been said to show that the Legend, hitherto undeservedly undervalued, or admired only as a beautiful, but meaningless, tale, is really of practical value and worthy of attention both by Britain and by modern India.

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