A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.s3.49.3

c8.s3.49.3

Their language is firm, though it is no longer inflated. "Buddhism," as Burnouf says,¹ "soon grew into a system of easy devotion, and found numerous recruits among those who were frightened by the difficulties of Brahmanical science. At the same time that Buddhism attracted the ignorant among the Brahmans, it received with open arms the poor and the miserable of all classes.” It was to remove, or at least to simplify, the difficulties of their teaching, that men like Śaunaka and Kātyāyana adopted the novel style of the Sūtras. Such changes in the sacred literature of a people are not made without an object, and the object of the Sūtras, as distinct from that of the Brāhmaṇas, could be no other than to offer practical manuals to those who were discouraged by too elaborate treatises, and who had found a shorter way to salvation opened to them by the heretical preaching of Buddha. After the Sūtras there is no literature of a purely Vedic character except the Pariśiṣṭas. They still presuppose the laws of the Sūtras and the faith of the Brāhmaṇas. There is as yet no trace of any definite supremacy being accorded to Śiva or Viṣṇu or Brahman. New gods, however, are mentioned; vulgar or popular ceremonies are alluded to. The castes have become more marked and multiplied. The whole intellectual atmosphere is still Vedic, and the Vedic ceremonial, the Vedic theology, the Vedic language seem still to absorb the thoughts of the authors of the Pariśiṣṭas.