In several discourses attributed to the Buddha[248] is incorporated a tract called the Sila-vagga, giving a list of practices of which he disapproved, such as divination and the use of spells and drugs.  Among special observances censured, the following are of interest. (a) Burnt offerings, and offerings of blood drawn from the right knee. (b) The worship of the Sun, of Siri, the goddess of Luck, and of the Great One, meaning perhaps the Earth. (c) Oracles obtained from a mirror, or from a girl possessed by a spirit or from a god.

We also find allusions in Buddhist and Jain works as well as in the inscriptions of Asoka to popular festivals or fairs called Samajjas[249] which were held on the tops of hills and seem to have included music, recitations, dancing and perhaps dramatic performances.  These meetings were probably like the modern mela, half religion and half entertainment, and it was in such surroundings that the legends and mythology which the great Epics show in full bloom first grew and budded.

Thus we have evidence of the existence in pre-Buddhist India of rites and beliefs—­the latter chiefly of the kind called animistic—­disowned for the most part by the Buddhists and only tolerated by the Brahmans.  No elaborate explanation of this popular religion or of its relation to more intellectual and sacerdotal cults is necessary, for the same thing exists at the present day and the best commentary on the Sila-vagga is Crooke’s Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India.

In themselves such popular superstitions may seem despicable and repulsive (as the Buddha found them), but when they are numerous and vigorous, as in India, they have a real importance for they provide a matrix and nursery in which the beginnings of great religions may be reared.  Saktism and the worship of Rama and Krishna, together with many less conspicuous cults, all entered Brahmanism in this way.  Whenever a popular cult grew important or whenever Brahmanic influence spread to a new district possessing such a cult, the popular cult was recognized and brahmanized.  This policy can be abundantly illustrated for the last four or five centuries (for instance in Assam), and it was in operation two and a half millenniums ago or earlier.  It explains the low and magical character of the residue of popular religion, every ceremony and deity of importance being put under Brahmanic patronage, and it also explains the sudden appearance of new deities.  We can safely assert that in the time of the Buddha, and a fortiori in the time of the older Upanishads[250] and Brahmanas, Krishna and Rama were not prominent as deities in Hindustan, but it may well be that they had a considerable position as heroes whose exploits were recited at popular festivals and that Krishna was growing into a god in other regions which have left no literature.

CHAPTER VII