The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c6.s1.59

c6.s1.59

The poetic stanzas of all sorts, and the ritualistic prose formulas of the Veda collectively go by the name of *mantra*, "pious utterance" or "hymn." In the texts of one group of Yajur-Vedas, the so-called Black Yajur-Vedas,² these stanzas and prose formulas alternate with descriptive prose chapters which tell how these *mantras* are to be used at the sacrifice, and why they are to be used in a given way. The passages are designated as *brāhmana*. In the case of the so-called White Yajur-Vedas and also all the other Vedas the Brāhmanas are compiled into separate works whose object, again, is to expound the combination of prayer and ritual at the sacrifice. The meaning of the word *brāhmaṇa* is not altogether clear. Either it means "holy practice," or "religious performance" in distinction from *mantra*, "holy utterance," or "religious text." Or, perhaps rather it means the theological explanation by Brahman priests of the religious ritual as a whole, including both prayer and performance. As regards both contents and literary quality, the Brāhmanas are closely analogous to the Hebrew Talmud. In the main they are bulky prose statements of the details of the great Vedic sacrifices, and their theological meaning. Both the performances and their explanation are treated in such a way, and spun out to such length, as to render these works on the whole monuments of tediousness and intrinsic stupidity. And yet the Brāhmanas compel the student of Hinduism that comes to scoff to stay to pray. In the first place they are important because they are written in connected prose—the earliest narrative prose in the entire field of Indo-European speech, only little less archaic than the prose formulas of the Yajur-Veda.¹ They are especially important for syntax: in this respect they represent the old Hindu speech far better than the Rig-Veda, whose syntax and style are distracted by the licenses and restrictions that go with poetic form. Secondly, the Brāhmanas are an almost inexhaustible mine for the history of the sacrifice, religious practices, and the institutions of priesthood. These institutions in time became so systematic and formidable as to make the names Brahman and Brahmanism typical everywhere for priest and priesthood. Thirdly, the Brāhmana texts not only describe and expound the sacrifice, but they illustrate and enliven it by numerous stories and legends. While engaged in expounding the technicalities of the ritual, they at the same time unconsciously supplement the poetic Vedas. The Hebrew Talmud interrupts the hair-splitting, logic-chopping expositions of its ritual Hallacha, by picking from time to time rare flowers from the garden of its Haggada, or legendary lore. The Brāhmanas no less make drafts upon the past and present of the great storehouse of myths and stories that India has cherished from the beginning of her time. The poetic value of many of these stories may be judged from the fact that they remain stock themes for the Hindu poets of later times.