Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c11.s6.14

c11.s6.14

¹ Cf. Max Müller: "The very fact that the *Āraṇyakas* are destined for a class of men who had retired from the world in order to give themselves up to the contemplation of the highest problems shows an advanced . . . society. . . . The problems, indeed, which are discussed in the *Āraṇyakas* and the old *Upanishads* are not in themselves modern. They had formed the conversation of the old and the young, of warriors and poets, for ages. But in a healthy state of society these questions were discussed in courts and camps: priests were contradicted by kings, sages confounded by children, women were listened to when they were moved by an unknown spirit. This time, which is represented to us by the early legends of the *Āraṇyakas*, was very different from that which gave rise to professional anchorites, and to a literature composed exclusively for their benefit. . . . We must carefully distinguish between a period of growth and a period which tried to reduce that growth to rules and formulae. . . . The generation which became the chroniclers of those Titanic wars of thought was a small race; they were dwarfs, measuring the footprints of departed giants."