Caste in India: The Facts and the System c5.20

c5.20

The doctrine of metempsychosis is the cornerstone of Hinduism, but it is completely foreign to the hymns. When we first meet with it, partly veiled, partly explicit, in the oldest Upanishads, are we in the presence of its first gropings towards realization and development?—or are we in the presence of the partial infiltration into esoteric circles of a belief already dominant outside?