A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c4.s1.2.1

c4.s1.2.1

4. When we come to the age of the Brāhmaṇas, we come to an age of ceremonialism and ritualism. As the chief topic of the Atharvaveda is incantation, similarly the chief topic of the Brāhmaṇas is sacrifice. It passes one’s understanding how the original purity of the hymnology of the Rigveda should have been so much sullied in the age of the Brāhmaṇas, which only try to foist a superstructure of meaningless ceremonialism upon the hymnology of the Veda, and press into their service passages and texts from the Vedas which they utilise in such a way as to support the not-very-glorious life of the sacrificer. Curious indeed are the ways in which the Brāhmaṇa passages mingle together legends, exegeses, dogmas, philological and philosophical speculations so as to exhibit the efficacy of the Mantras for the practical life of the sacrificer. It is a pitiful phenomenon to notice how at the time of the Brāhmaṇas so much intellect should have been wasted on the formulation of the details of the various sacrificial rites : it only reminds one of the wheels within wheels of the scholastic interpretations of Christian dogma in the Middle Ages. The spirit of the Upanishads is, on the other hand, barring a few exceptions here and there, entirely antagonsitic to the sacrificial doctrine of the Brāhmaṇas.