The History of Indian Literature c8.308.1

c8.308.1

Of the forty books of the Saṃhitá, the sixteenth and thirtieth are those which bear most distinctly the stamp of the time to which they belong. The sixteenth book, on which, in its Taittiríya form, the honour was afterwards bestowed of being regarded as an Upanishad, and as the principal book of the Śiva sects, treats of the propitiation of Rudra; and (see *I. St.*, ii. 22, 24–26) by its enumeration and distinction of the many different kinds of thieves, robbers, murderers, night-brawlers, and highwaymen, his supposed servants, reveals to us a time of insecurity and violence: its mention, too, of various mixed castes indicates that the Indian caste system and polity were already fully developed.