The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s1.40

v2.c40.s1.40

The explanation² becomes simple enough when we look at the Brāhmaṇas and the Rigveda: there we find that kings are often mentioned as generous donors: that there are lists of the great kings who performed sacrifices, and who beyond all things gave fees to the priest, just as in historical times great kings, like Puṣyamitra and Samudragupta, boast of their offerings. It was clearly necessary for the priests, who abandoned the doctrine of sacrifice, to live: they, therefore, had to find patrons and they must accordingly, like their predecessors, the sacrificial priests, represent their teachings as worth large sums. As a king must sacrifice to give gifts, so he must at least understand, and take part in discussions, to give gifts, and the position of the kings might easily be wholly deduced from the needs of the priest. But it would be unnecessary, and, it may be added, perhaps unjust to hold this view: the thought of the Upaniṣads with all its demerits is a far nobler thing than the thought of the Brāhmaṇas: as later among the Buddhists, the minds which could rise from the mere sacrifice to the consideration of the self were quite capable of accepting help from other minds: of low origin, Satyakāma, whose mother was a mere slave girl Jabālā, who ran about with men and who could not tell his father, was taken as a pupil by Hāridrumata and attained the complete knowledge:¹ even the epic, in one of its juster moments, allows a learned Çūdra honour and permits a merchant to instruct a Brahman.² In modern India saints of the highest rank have been other than Brahmans in caste. The princes were now and then seers, like Divodāsa, son of Vadhryaçva,³ and they may for their part have now and then wearied of the sacrifice, and sought a higher truth, just as, inversely, we hear of seers who sought kingly rank for their offspring,⁴ and there may be that degree of accuracy in the figure played by them in the legends.⁵ But that the philosophy of the Brāhmaṇas as seen in the Upaniṣads is essentially the development of the philosophy of the Brāhmaṇas cannot reasonably be doubted. Nor is there any ground for thinking that the philosophy had its chief home anywhere save in the holy ground of the Brahmans, the land of Kurukṣetra, which seems to have been in this period as in the earlier epoch the place of Brahmanical culture *par excellence*.⁶ The culture was not absolutely restricted to that area: the mention of Açvapati Kaikeya carries us further to the northwest, while we hear of Brahmans who dwelt in Magadha,⁷ though that was rare. The Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad⁸ preserves for us in the movements of Gārgya Bālāki the traces of the extent of the activity of the new movement: he went among the Kurus, the Pañcālas, the two folks then being joined, the Kāçis and Videhas, and the Vaças and Matsyas, and among the Uçīnaras. All this accords with the extent of the land in which the sacrifice was prevalent, and the addition of the Kosalas would complete the list: doubtless their omission here is mere chance. Other allusions to countries do not show any substantial extension of the geographical horizon of the authors: the Vindhya mountains are, it seems, known to the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad, and this is perhaps a proof that the Vedic civilization was extending southwards⁹ in greater degree than in the preceding period. The references to the Indus region, whence came salt and noble horses, suggest that it was afar off, but against this is to be set the mention of Gandhāra as not at all a distant country in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad.¹⁰ But culture was not in any event rigidly confined to the middle country: scholars in their wanderings penetrated as far as the Madras, on the Hyphasis.¹¹