Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c11.4

c11.4

We have already seen how the Rigveda Saṁhitā presents the two aspects of Religion, the aspect of Thought, Philosophy, Meditation, and Concentration (Tapas) and the practical aspect of Religion as exemplified in external worship of individual deities by means of *Yajñas* or sacrifices. The first aspect is distinguished as *Jñāna-kāṇḍa* and the second *Karma-kāṇḍa*. The *Karma-kāṇḍa*, the practical needs of worship, called for the growth of priesthood and its necessary texts, the two Vedic Saṁhitās of Sāma and Yajuḥ. Religion now began to centre more and more in ceremonial and sacrifice, the details of which were more and more elaborated and called for suitable texts by which they could be regulated, fixed, and conserved. This explains the emergence of a new type of literature, the *Brāhmaṇas*, which is unique in the annals of literature. It is the literature of priesthood and has a very narrow appeal. But like the Yajurveda it is important as a source of religious history, the history of sacrifice and priesthood. Ritualism runs riot in these Brāhmaṇa works. An age of creation is now succeeded by an age of conservation, compilation, and criticism. Poets and Seers are now replaced by Priests and Theologians. A reaction soon followed and expressed itself in the Upanishads which bring back into religion the atmosphere of abstraction and pure thought which the Rigveda breathes.