Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s12.2

v1.c8.s12.2

In the history of thought creative and critical epochs succeed each other. Periods of rich and glowing faith are followed by those of aridity and artificiality. When we pass from the Ṛg-Veda to the Yajur and the Sāma Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, we feel a change in the atmosphere. The freshness and simplicity of the former give place to the coldness and artificiality of the latter. The spirit of religion is in the background, while its forms assume great importance. The need for prayer-books is felt. Liturgy is developed. The hymns are taken out of the Ṛg-Veda and arranged to suit sacrificial necessities. The priest becomes the lord. The Yajur-Veda gives the special formulas to be uttered when the altar is to be erected, etc., and the Sāman describes the songs to be chanted at the sacrifice. These Vedas may be discussed along with the Brāhmaṇas, since they all describe the sacrificial liturgy. The religion of the Yajur-Veda is a mechanical sacerdotalism. A crowd of priests conducts a vast and complicated system of external ceremonies to which symbolical significance is attached and to the smallest minutiæ of which the greatest weight is given. The truly religious spirit could not survive in the stifling atmosphere of ritual and sacrifice. The religious feeling of the adoration of the ideal and the consciousness of guilt is lacking. Every prayer is coupled with a particular rite and aims at securing some material advantage. The formulas of the Yajur-Veda are full of dreary repetitions of petty requests for the goods of life. We cannot draw a sharp distinction between the age of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda and the other Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, since the tendencies which became predominant in the latter were also found in the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda. We can say with some degree of certainty that the mass of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda belongs to an age earlier than that of the Brāhmaṇas.