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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s1.t2: 2. Some Remarks on the Veda

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c5.s1.t2

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2. Some Remarks on the Veda

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a) General view

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The great and not yet fully accessible complex of writings which bears the name of Veda, that is, "(theological) knowledge," and whose extent exceeds that of the Bible more than six times over, falls in the first place into four divisions, the Rigveda, Sâmaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda; in each of these four Vedas we have to distinguish between three different classes of writings, according to content, form and age: 1) The Saṃhitâ, 2) The Brâhmaṇam, 3) The Sûtram; moreover the greater part of these twelve divisions exists in different, more or less divergent recensions, as used by the different schools for whose study they served, and these are commonly spoken of as the Çâkhâ's, that is, "the branches," of the Veda-tree. For an understanding of this complicated organism it will be useful to distinguish between the form in which the Veda exists at present, and the historical development through which it has grown to this form.

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b) The literary materials of the Veda

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In the first place the four Vedas, in the form in which they come to us, are nothing else than the Manuals of the Brahmanical Priests (ritvij), providing them with the materials of hymns and sentences necessary for the sacrificial cult, as well as teaching them their right use. To each complete sacrificial ceremony belong, in fact, four chief-priests distinguished according to their courses of studies, and their functions: 1) the Hotar, who recites the verses (ric) of the hymns, in order to invite the gods to the enjoyment of the Soma or other offerings, 2) the Udgâtar, who accompanies the preparation and presentation of the Soma with his chants (sâman), 3) the Adhvaryu, who performs the sacred rite, while he mutters the corresponding verses and sacrificial sentences (yajus), 4) the Brahmán, to whom is confided the superintending and guiding of the whole. The canonical book for the Hotar is the Rigveda (though the Rigveda-saṃhitâ has from the outset a wider import, not merely ritual but also literary), that for the Udgâtar is the Sâmaveda, that for the Adhvaryu the Yajurveda, while on the contrary the Atharvaveda has nothing to do with the Brahmán,⁴ who must know all the three Vedas, and to whom the Atharvaveda is only referred for the sake of appearance, in order to help to raise it to the dignity of a fourth Veda, which was for a long time refused to it.⁵ It finds its practical application on the one hand in the domestic cult (birth, marriage, burial, sicknesses, blessing the harvest, incantations over cattle and so forth), on the other hand in certain official acts (inauguration of the king, blessing before a battle, cursing of the enemy and so on); in the latter aspect it is the Veda of the Kshatriya caste, as the three others are of the Brahman caste,⁶ and might stand in the same relation to the Purohita (prince's family priest) as that which the others hold to the Ritvij's (cf. Yâjñavalkya 1, 312).

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⁴ Âpastamba-çrauta-sûtram 24, 16—19: ṛigvedena hotâ karoti, sâmavedena udgâtâ, yajurvedena adhvaryuḥ, sarvair brahmâ.—Madhu-sûdana (Ind. Stud. I, 16, 8): tatra hautra-prayoga’ ṛigvedena, âdhvaryava-prayogo yajurvedena, audgâtra-prayogaḥ sâmavedena, brâhma-yâjamâna-prayogau tu atra eva antarbhûtau; atharvavedas tu, yajña-anupayuktaḥ, çânti-paushṭika-abhicâra-âdi-karma-pratipâdakatvena atyanta-vilakshaṇa’ eva.

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⁵ Gopatha-brâhmaṇam 1, 2, 24: ṛigvidam eva hotâram vṛiṇishva, yajurvidam adhvaryum, sâmavidam udgâtâram, atharvâṅgirovidam brahmâṇam.—Atharva-pariçishṭam 1 (Ind. Stud. I, 296, 28): rakshâṃsi rakshati brahmâ, brahmâ tasmâd atharvavit.—Cf. Vishṇupurâṇam III, 4 (p. 276, Wilson).—An indirect acknowledgement of the fourth Veda by Çaṅkara is found on p. 239, 2.

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⁶ It is perhaps to be understood in this sense, when Bṛih. 5, 13 (Çatap. Br. 14, 8, 14) kshatram appears as fourth along with uktham, yajus and sâman.

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Each of the priests named required in his duties, first, a collection of prayer-formulas (mantra) and, second, directions for the right liturgical and ritual application of these (brâhmaṇam). With the exception of the black Yajurveda, we find these two more or less completely separated and relegated to two different divisions.

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I. The Saṃhitâ of each Veda, as the name indicates, is a “collection” of the Mantra's belonging to it, which are either verses (ṛic) or chants (sâman) or sacrificial sentences (yajus).

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Thus the Rigveda-saṃhitā consists of 1017 hymns in 10580 verses, from which the Hotar has to select the required invocation for the purpose in view; the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā contains a selection of 1549 verses (or with repetitions 1810), either from the Rigveda-saṃhitā, or from the materials on which it is based; all these excepting only 75, are also found in the Rigveda. They are modulated in numerous ways, for the purposes of the chant (sāman); the Saṃhitā of the white Yajurveda contains both prose sacrificial sentences (yajus) and verses, the latter of which are in great measure taken from the materials of the Rigveda; on the other hand, the Atharvaveda-saṃhitā consists merely of 760 Hymns, only about one sixth of which are common to it and the Rigveda, while the remainder occupy an independent and in many respects quite peculiar position in the total of the Vedic Mantra literature, of which later. Each of these four Saṃhitās, according to the Çākhās or Schools, in which it is studied, is extant in different recensions, which, however, do not, as a rule, differ materially from one another. It is otherwise, as will presently be shown, with the second division of Vedic literature.

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II. The Brāhmaṇam, whose most direct purpose generally is, to teach the practical use of the materials presented in the Saṃhitā, in its widest scope often goes far beyond this immediate purpose, and draws within its sphere what (with Madhusūdana) we may include in the three categories of vidhi, arthavāda and vedānta. 1) As vidhi (i. e., precept) the Brāhmaṇam enjoins the ceremonies, explains the occasions of their use, as well as the means for carrying them out, and finally describes the process of the sacred rite itself. 2) With this, under the name of arthavāda (i. e., explanation) are linked the most various discussions, whose purpose is, to support the content of the precept by exegesis, polemic, mythology, dogma and so forth. 3) The consideration of the subject here and there rises to thoughts of a philosophical character, which, as they are found for the most part towards the end of the Brāhmaṇa's, are called vedānta (i. e., Veda-end). They are the chief content of the appendixes to the Brāhmaṇa's which are called Āraṇyaka's, and whose original purpose (though not strictly maintained) was to serve for the life in the forest (araṇyam), which was enjoined upon the Brahmans in old age, to serve as a substitute for the ritual which, if not completely left behind, was yet very much limited. However this may be, it is the fact that in them we meet abundantly a wonderful spiritualising of the sacrificial cult: in place of the practical carrying out of the ceremonies, comes meditation upon them, and with it a symbolical change of meaning, which then leads on farther to the loftiest thoughts.⁷

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⁷ Let the opening passage of the Bṛihad-āraṇyakam (which is intended for the Adhvaryu), in which the Horse Sacrifice is treated, serve as an example:

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"Om!—Dawn verily is the head of the sacrificial horse, the sun is his eye, the wind his breath, his mouth is the all-pervading fire, the year is the body of the sacrificial horse; heaven is his back, space is his belly, the earth is his foot-stool (Çañk.). The poles are his loins, the intermediate quarters are his ribs, the seasons are his limbs, months and half-months are his joints, day and night are his feet, the stars are his bones, the clouds are his flesh. The deserts are the food which he consumes, rivers are his entrails, the mountains his liver and lungs, plants and trees his hair; the rising sun is his forequarters, the setting sun is his hindquarters; when he yawns, that is the lightning, when he neighs, that is the thunder, when he waters, that is rain; his voice is speech. Day verily arose after the horse as the sacrificial vessel, which stands before him; its cradle is in the eastern ocean; night verily arose as the sacrificial vessel, which stands behind him: its cradle is in the western ocean; these two sacrificial vessels arose to surround the horse. As a racer he carried the gods, as a war-horse the gandharvas, as a steed the demons, as a horse mankind. The ocean is his companion, the ocean his cradle."

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Here the universe takes the place of the horse to be offered, perhaps with the thought in the background, that the ascetic is to renounce the world (cf. Bṛih. 3, 5, 1. 4, 4, 22), as the father of the family renounces the real sacrificial gift. In just the same way, the Chândogya-Upanishad (1, 1) which is intended for the Udgâtar, teaches as the true udgîtha: to be recognised and honoured the syllable "om," which is a symbol of Brahman (paramâtma-pratîkam); and the uktham (hymn) which belongs to the Hotar is subjected to a like transformation of meaning in Aitareya-āraṇyakam (2, 1, 2).—Compare Brahmasûtra 3, 3, 55—56, where the thought is developed that symbolical representations (pratyaya) of this kind have validity not only within the Çâkhâ, in which they are found, but also in general.

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The most important parts of these Âranyaka's were later detached from them under the name Upanishad, and were brought together from the different Veda's into a single whole; but originally, as we must admit, each Vedic school had its special ritual textbook, and together with this a more or less rich dogmatic textbook, and if there were in reality, as the Muktikâ-Upanishad (Ind. St. III, 324) affirms, 21 + 1000 + 109 + 50 = 1180 Çâkhâ's, it follows that there must have been 1180 Upanishad's. In reality, however, the matter is much simpler, since the number of the Çâkhâ's, which we really know, is limited for each Veda to a very small number, whose textbooks present the common ritual and dogmatic material in differing order, treatment and elaboration. Thus we are acquainted with only two Çâkhâ's of the Rigveda, that of the Aitareyin's and that of the Kaushîtakin's, each of which possesses one Brâhmanam and one Âranyakam, the latter containing the Upanishad of the school.—For the Sâmaveda we know up to the present for the Brâhmana section only one Çâkhâ accurately and completely, that of the Tândin's, to which belong the following writings: a) the Pañcaviñça-brâhmanam; b) the Shadviñça-brâhmanam, whose name already characterizes it as an addition to the former; c) we must also attribute to the school of the Tândin's the hitherto incompletely known Chândogya-brâhmanam, since Çankara under this name quotes a passage, p. 892, 9, which according to Râjendralâla Mitra (The Chândogya-Up., Introduction, p. 17 N.) forms the beginning of the Chândogya-brâhmanam; d) finally Çankara repeatedly quotes the Chândogya-upanishad as belonging to the Tândin's; thus Chând. 3, 16 (quoted p. 889, 10. 890, 8) 8, 13, 1 (p. 899, 3. 907, 7. 908, 5) 6, 8, 7 (p. 923, 8).—A second independent book of ritual for the Sâmaveda is possibly the Talavakâra-brâhmanam of the Jaiminîya-çâkhâ (cf. Çankara's statement on Kena-Up., p. 28, and those of Burnell in Müller's Upanishad's I, p. XC), according to Burnell in five Adhyâya's, the last but one of which contains the well-known short Kena-Upanishad (quoted p. 70, 1. 4. 10. 163, 3. 808, 10), while the last consists of the Ârsheya-brâhmanam (quoted p. 301, 8). The four remaining Brâhmana's of the Sâmaveda (Sâmavidhâna, Vaṅça, Devatâdhyâya, Saṃhitopanishad) can make no claim to the name of independent textbooks of the school.—For the Yajurveda we have to distinguish two forms, the black (that is, unarranged) and the white (arranged) Yajurveda. The former contains Brâhmaṇa-like materials mingled with the Mantra's in the Saṃhitâ; in this form the schools of the Taittirîyaka's (whose Brâhmaṇam and Âraṇyakam are merely continuations of the Saṃhitâ), the Katha's and the Maitrâyaṇîya's have handed the Yajurveda down to us. The Taittirîya-âraṇyakam contains at its close two Upanishad's, the Taittirîya-Upanishad (Book VII. VIII. IX) and the Nârâyaṇîya-Upanishad (Book X). To the school of the Katha's belongs the Kāṭhaka-Upanishad, which we now possess only in an Atharvan recension, whereas in Çaṅkara's time it seems to have formed a whole with the other texts of the Katha's, of which more will be said later; under the name Maitri-Upanishad we have received a late product of very apocryphal character;⁸ the name of a fourth Çâkhâ of the black Yajurveda, the Çvetâçvatara's, is that of a metrical Upanishad of secondary origin, which, however, is largely quoted by Çaṅkara as "Çvetâçvatarâṇâm mantropanishad" (p. 110, 5, cf. 416, 1. 920, 4) and seemingly also already by Bâdarâyaṇa (1, 1, 11. 1, 4, 8. 2, 3, 2).

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⁸ Çaṅkara nowhere quotes it (Maitreyî-brâhmaṇam p. 385, 8. 1006, 5 means the section Bṛih. 2, 4 = 4, 5); moreover the term Sushumnâ (Maitr. 6, 21) is not yet to be found in the Commentary to the Brahmasûtra's.

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In contrast to the Çâkhâ's of the black Yajurveda, the Vâjasaneyin's, the chief school of the white Yajurveda, separated the Mantra's and Brâhmaṇa's after the manner of the remaining Veda's; the former are collected in the Vâjasaneyi-saṃhitâ, the latter form the content of the Çatapatha-brâhmaṇam, the concluding part (B. XIV) of which contains the greatest and most beautiful of all the Upanishad's, the Bṛihad-âraṇyakam. A piece closely related to it (probably only on account of its metrical form) has been added to the Vâjasaneyi-saṃhitâ as Book XL, and is called, from its first word, the Îçâ-upanishad; in the version of Anquetil Duperron four additional sections of the same Saṃhitâ, Çatarudriyam (B. XVI), Purushasûktam (XXXI), Tadeva (XXXII), and Çivasamkalpa (XXXIV, the beginning) are classed as Upanishad's.—Besides the Vâjasaneyin's Çaṅkara thirteen times quotes an other school of the White Yajurveda, the Jâbâla's; nine of these quotations (p. 222, 8. 223, 1. 417, 11. 988, 8 = 991, 4. 999, 6. 1000, 1, 3. 1025, 8) are found, with important variants, in the Jâbâla-Upanishad, which is to-day included among the Atharva-Upanishad's, four others (924, 7 = 1059, 1. 931, 4 = 933, 4) are not, so that, as it seems, Çaṅkara had a more complete work of this school before him. Whether Bâdarâyaṇa quotes the same work (1, 2, 32. 4, 1, 3) remains uncertain.⁹ To the Atharvaveda belongs the Gopatha-brâhmaṇam, a work which has preponderatingly the character of a compilation and is without close relation to the Atharva-saṃhitâ. We find no quotations from it in Çaṅkara; the circumstance that at 3, 3, 24, p. 889 ff., he does not also consider Gopatha-br. II, 5, 4, increases the probability that he did not know or did not recognize this work. Finally, to the Atharvaveda, which could most probably not be guarded against new invasions by supervision of the guild as were the other Veda's, has been attached a long series of Upanishad's for the most part short, many of which have a wholly apocryphal character and are nothing more than the textbooks of later Indian sects. Two Upanishad's of the Atharvan are of special significance for the Vedânta, the Muṇḍaka- and the Praçna-Upanishad, both of which are frequently quoted by Bâdarâyaṇa and Çaṅkara, while we strangely find no certain quotation from the Mâṇḍûkya-Upanishad which is so abundantly used in the Vedântasâra.

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⁹ Çaṅkara understands 1, 2, 32 as the Jâbâlopanishad 2, p. 439 and 4, 1, 3 as a text of this school unknown to us; on the other hand according to the Vedânta-çaiva-bhâshyam (Pandit, June 1872, p. 19) 1, 2, 32 and according to the Vedânta-kaustubha-prabhâ (Pandit, August 1874, p. 55) 4, 1, 3 are not to be referred to the Jâbâla's.

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III. A third and last stage of the Vedic literature is formed by the SÛTRA'S, likewise divided according to Veda's and Çâkhâ's (whose relations however seem to be somewhat unfixed); they bring together the contents of the Brâhmaṇa's, on which they are based, condensing, systematizing and completing them, for the purpose of practical life, in very compendious form, and in the lapidary style which is often quite incomprehensible without a commentary, a style to which also the grammatical, and, as we shall shortly see, the philosophical literature of India has adapted itself. There are three classes of Vedic Sûtra's: 1) the Çrauta-sûtra's, which regulate public worship, 2) the Gṛihya-sûtra's, which regulate domestic ceremonies (at birth, marriage, and the funeral), and 3) the Dharma-sûtra's, in which the duties of the Castes and Âçrama's are set forth in detail, and from which the later lawbooks of Manu and so on are derived. As the Çrauta-sûtra's are based on the Çruti (that is, Divine Revelation), the two other classes in like manner rest on the Smṛiti (that is, Tradition) and Âcâra (that is, Custom); more will be said further on of the meaning of these expressions in the terminology of the Vedânta.

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c) Of the Genesis of the Veda

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The most ancient monument in this extensive circle of literature (and perhaps also the most ancient literary monument of the human race) is formed by the Hymns of the Rigveda, since, as regards the great bulk of them, they go back to a time when their possessors were not yet in the valley of the Ganges, but lived among the tributaries of the Indus, had as yet no Castes, no privileged worship, no Brahmanical system of government and life, but belonged to small tribes (viç) under kings most of whom were hereditary, tilling their fields, pasturing their herds, fighting among themselves, and enjoying a primitive life. The Hymns of the Rigveda unfold a graphic picture ¹⁰ of all these relations, but especially we can follow in them the genesis of the primitive nature religion of India through its different phases, in part even from the moment when the gods are crystallizing under the hand of the poet out of the phenomena of nature, to the point at which belief in them for the thinking part of the nation begins to grow dim,¹¹ and is being replaced by the first stirrings of philosophical speculation, the latter especially in the later hymns chiefly found in the last Maṇḍala, many of which, as for example the Hymn of Purusha, Rigv. 10, 90 (VS. 31. AV. 19, 6. TĀ. 3, 12), already show an immigration into the Ganges valley with the consequent development of the Caste system.

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¹⁰ Cf. on this point the mutually supplementary works: Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, Berlin 1879; Ludwig, Die Mantra-Litteratur und das alte Indien (in the third volume of Ludwig's Rigveda), Prague 1878; Kaegi, Der Rigveda, Leipzig 1881; Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Berlin 1894; Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, Breslau 1891—1902.

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¹¹ There are hymns in the Rigveda which treat religion with open scorn. Thus among others (e. g. Rigv. 7, 103) the hymn Rigv. 9, 112, which not without humour develops the thought that even the god Indra, like mankind, selfishly follows his own profit; and which very effectively uses a constantly recurring refrain, borrowed apparently from a religious hymn, "indrāya indo parisrava." It is true that Grassman has omitted this refrain, in which the whole point lies.—The "Liturgy of the Dogs" (ҫauva udgītha) Chând. 1, 12 seems to own its origin to similar motives.

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For after the Indians through many battles and struggles, whose poetical reflections are contained for us in the Mahābhāratam, had won a permanent dwelling place for themselves in the paradise-like plain between the Himālaya and the Vindhya, their manner of life took on a form essentially different from the earlier one, owing to its altered external relations: an insurmountable barrier was in the first place erected between the Ҫūdra’s, the repressed population of the aborigines, and the immigrant Aryans; then further, above the Vaiҫya’s, that is, the collective mass of Aryan tribes, were raised on the one side, as possessors of material might, the Kshatriya’s, the warrior-nobility with the kings at their head, and on the other side the real or pretended descendants of the old Vedic poet-families, who called themselves Brāhmaṇa’s (offerers of prayer, priests), and succeeded in making their family privilege not only the Vedic hymns and the worship bound up with them, but by and by also the whole national education. It is true that, as before, all members of the three upper castes, so far as they were Dvija's ("twice-born," reborn through the sacrament of the Upanayanam, the admission into the Brahmanical church) had to offer, and in part also to perform, sacrifices, but only the Brahmans could eat the sacrificial food, drink the Soma, and receive the sacrificial gift without which the sacrifice was not efficacious; they only could be Ritvij's (sacrificial priests for another for hire) and Purohita's (permanent family priests of the princes). Of these caste privileges the Brahmans were able in time to make a more and more extended use. In proportion as, through the consolidation of their settlements, the prosperity of the princes and the people grew, the external pageantry of worship increased; the number of the participating priests augmented, the names Brahman, Hotar, Adhvaryu, Udgâtar, which we see emerging in the Rigveda at first sporadically and without strict distinction, were bound up into a system, and by the side of each of these Ritvij's at a great sacrifice stood a series of accolytes.

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Now the more complex the system of worship became, the more imperatively it demanded a special training, and this practical need was the decisive factor in the arrangement of the Vedic literature,--if indeed this word can be employed for a condition of things in which no written record is to be thought of.¹² Little by little, a firm tradition grew up about the verses and sentences with which the Adhvaryu had to accompany his manipulations (Yajurveda), as about the songs which the Udgâtar chanted at the sacred operations (Sâmaveda), and lastly it was no longer enough for the Hotar to know the songs hereditary in his own family; the separate collections of hymns were gathered into circles (*maṇḍalam*), the circles into a single whole (*Ṛgveda*), which then for a certain further period still remained open for additional new productions.—Not all the old hymns were admitted into this canon; many had to be excluded, because their contents were thought to be offensive or otherwise unsuited; others because, sprung from the people, they were not supported by the authority of some famous bardic family. To these were continually added new blossoms which the old stem of Vedic lyrics bore in the Brāhmaṇa Period, and which bear clear testimony to the altered consciousness of the time. From these materials, which had to be handed down for a long time outside the schools in the mouths of the people (to which fact their frequent and especially metrical negligence bears testimony), there came into being in course of time a fourth collection (*Atharvaveda*), which had to struggle long before gaining a recognition which always remained conditional.

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¹² Even the Upanishads seem originally to have been handed down only orally. On the one hand we find passages in them which only become intelligible by an accompanying gesture (e.g., Bṛih. 1, 4, 6: atha iti abhyamanthat; 2, 2, 4: imau eva [the ears] Gautama-Bharadvâjau, ayam eva Gautamo, 'yam Bharadvâjaḥ, and so on); on the other hand, e.g., Chând. 8, 3, 5 satyam is treated as a trisyllable, Bṛih. 5, 14, 1, bhûmir antariksham dyauḥ and 5, 14, 3 prâṇo 'pâno vyânaḥ are treated as eight syllables.—For the rest, the question of a written record in India has not the importance which we, judging by our own position, are inclined to give it.

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Meanwhile the other older collections had become the basis of a certain course of study, which in course of time took a more and more regular form. Originally it was the father who initiated his son into the sacred lore handed down by the family, as best he could (Bṛh. 6, 2, 4. Chānd. 5, 3, 5), soon, through the growing difficulty of understanding the old texts, the more and more complicated form of the ritual, the perpetually extending circle of studies, this became too difficult for him; it became necessary to look for the most approved authorities for each of the theories (*vidyā*) that had to be learned, travelling scholars (*caraka*) went further afield (Bṛh. 3, 3, 1), celebrated wandering teachers moved from place to place (Kaush. 4, 1), and to many teachers pupils streamed, "like the waters to the deep" (Taitt. 1, 4, 3). Later custom demanded that every Ārya should spend a series of years (according to Āpast. dharma-sūtra 1, 1, 2, 16 at least twelve) in the house of a teacher, the Brāhmaṇa's, to prepare themselves for their future calling, the Kṣatriya's and Vaiçya's, to receive the influences which were to mould their later thought and life. We must assume (even if we have no quotation at hand to prove it) that the imparting of this instruction became in course of time the exclusive privilege of the Brahmans: only thus can be explained the unparalleled influence over the life of the Indian peoples which the Brahmans succeeded in winning and maintaining. As the outward apparel of the scholars of the different castes differed, so also probably did their instruction. As payment for it, the scholars performed the household and field labour of the teacher; they tended the sacred fire (Chând. 4, 10, 1), herded the teacher's cattle (Chând. 4, 4, 5), collected the customary gifts for him in the village and brought him presents at the conclusion of the course. In the time left free by these manifold obligations (guroḥ karma-atiśeṣeṇa, Chând. 8, 15) the Veda was studied. On the whole, it was less a time of study than a time of discipline, as the name Âçrama implies, intended for the practice of obedience to the teacher (of which extravagant examples are handed down) and strenuous self-abnegating activity. It was the tendency of Brahmanism to mould the whole life to such an Âçrama. Not all, after the termination of the time of study, set themselves to found a family: many remained in the teacher's house to the end of their lives (naiṣṭhika); others betook themselves to the forest to devote themselves to privations and penance; others again disdained even this form of regular existence, and cast away every thing (saṃnyāsin), to roam about (parivrājaka) as beggars (bhikṣu). The different kinds of “Âçrama,” or “religious exercise,” were further bound together in a whole, in which what appears as an abrupt command in St. Matthew's Gospel XIX, 21, seems to have been expanded into a vast system embracing the whole of life. Accordingly the life of every Brâhmaṇa,¹³ was to be divided into four stages, or Âçrama's; he was (1), as Brahmacârin, to dwell in the house of a teacher, then (2), as Gṛihastha, to fulfil the duty of founding a family, then (3) to leave it in old age, as Vânaprastha (forest hermit), to give himself up more and more to increasing penances, and lastly (4), towards the end of his life, as a *Saṃnyāsin* (*Bhikshu*, *Parivrājaka*) to wander free from all earthly ties and live on alms.—We do not know how far the reality corresponded to these ideal claims.

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¹³ A limitation to the Brâhmaṇa caste does not seem to follow with certainty from Manu VI, cf. v. 38. 70. 97 brâhmaṇa, v. 29. 32. 93 vipra; on the other hand v. 2 gr̥ihasthas tu, and so on; v. 40. 85. 91. 94 dvija.

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While Brahmanical teaching and conduct of life were surrounding the existence of the Indian peoples in ever denser toils, we see ripening on the branch of Brahmanism itself a world concept which, though outwardly bound up with it, was inwardly opposed to it in its very basis.—Already in the *Ṛigveda* strong movements of a certain philosophical tendency make themselves manifest. We perceive a special seeking and asking after the Unity which finally lies at the basis of all diversity; we see many attempts being made to solve the riddle of creation; to grasp through the motley changes of the world of appearances, through the more and more richly developed variety of the Vedic pantheon, the one formless principle of all that has form,—until at last the soul finds and lays hold of unity where alone unity is to be found—in the soul itself. Here, in the mysterious depths of his own heart, the seeker, raised above his own individuality by the fervour of aspiration (*bráhman*) discovered a power which he felt to transcend all the other powers of creation, a godlike might which, as he felt, dwells within all earthly and celestial beings as inner ruling principle (*antaryāmin*) on which all worlds and all gods rest, through fear of which fire burns, the sun shines, the storm, wind and death perform their work (*Kāṭh.* 6, 3), and without which not a straw can be burned by Agni, or carried away by Vāyu (*Kena* 3, 19. 23). A poetic formative power had clothed Agni, Indra and Vāyu with personality; this power it was by which that power of fervour, “that which in the narrow sphere expanding to all sides grows mightily, as a delight of the great gods, that which extends as a god to the gods from afar and embraces this universe” (*Ṛigv.* II, 24, 11) was raised above all gods first in a very transparent personification as *Brihaspati*, *Brahmaṇaspati*, but afterwards more truly, boldly, philosophically as *Bráhman* (prayer), as *Ātman* (Self), and from this power the gods and the whole world besides were derived in endlessly varied play of phantasy.—We may hope that thanks to the wealth of texts preserved in the Rigveda, Atharvaveda, and Brâhmaṇa’s, we may be able to trace step by step how the sparks of philosophic light appearing in the Rigveda shine out brighter and brighter until, at last, in the Upanishad’s, they burst out in that bright flame which is able to light and warm us to-day.

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Numerous indications intimate that the real guardians of these thoughts were originally not the priestly caste, absorbed in their ceremonial, but rather the caste of the Kshatriya’s. Again and again, in the Upanishad’s, we meet the situation that the Brahman begs the Kshatriya for instruction which the latter, after several representations of the unseemliness of such a proceeding, imparts to him (cf. Bṛih. 2. 1. Kaush. 4, 1. Bṛih. 6, 2. Chând. 5, 3. Chând. 5, 11. Kaush. 1, 1).—However this may be, the Brahmans appropriated this new teaching of Brâhman and its identity with the Self, and attached it, as best they could, to their own system of justification by works, in a way of which we shall say more in the sequel. Both systems, the ritual and the philosophic, were propagated in the Vedic schools, became inside and outside the school (at public festivals, at the courts of kings and so forth) the subject of keen debate and a not seldom vehement polemic; both suffered manifold transformations and exchanges in these contests and mutual accommodations; at last, as the precipitate of this rich spiritual life, the Brâhmaṇa’s and the Upanishad’s, in which they issue, were formed and brought into their present shape and finally (probably after their practical meaning had already long been transferred to the Sûtra’s) recorded in writing. It is to be hoped that in time it will be possible to reconstruct from them, even if not in every detail, the course of development which found its conclusion in them.

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We have already seen how the older Upanishad’s, which are the philosophic text-books of the different Çâkhâ’s, were added a long series of younger products of the same name; in these we can follow the further extension of religious concepts, and, hand in hand with it, the development of a special tendency to accomplish even in this life the union with the All-spirit, through a certain practical process (called Yoga), down to the time of the Indian sects. These texts, as it seems, have a purely external connection with the Atharvaveda.

Cites (38)