The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c10.39

c10.39

Professor Garbe of the University of Tübingen, an eminent student of Hindu philosophy and at the same time a scholar well versed in the early literature of the Vedas, is the most ardent advocate of this view. Garbe is not at all an admirer of Brahman civilisation; on more than one occasion has he poured out the vials of his just wrath against the intolerable pretensions and cruelties which the Brahmans have practised during the period of their ascendancy in India through several milleniums. But not content with that, he believes that the Brahmans were not only bold bad men, but also that they were too stupid to have worked their way from the sandy wastes of ritualism to the green summits where grows the higher thought of India. For centuries the Brahmans were engaged in excogitating sacrifice after sacrifice, and hair-splitting definitions and explanations of senseless ritualistic hocus-pocus. "All at once," says Professor Garbe, "lofty thought appears upon the scene. To be sure, even then the traditional god-lore, sacrificial lore, and folk-lore are not rejected, but the spirit is no longer satisfied with the cheap mysteries that surround the sacrificial altar. A passionate desire to solve the riddle of the universe and its relation to the own self holds the mind captive; nothing less will satisfy henceforth."