A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v1.c9.s2.7

v1.c9.s2.7

in the Upanishads, represents only the aspirations of the few cultured *Rishis*. The bulk of the people have always sighed for a royal road to salvation, hence the necessity for an A.V.; as Emerson appositely says in his essay on Demonology, "the history of man is a series of conspiracies to win from Nature some advantage without paying for it." Atharvanic rites have therefore more or less held sway over mankind in every age and clime. As the Aryan conquerors began to settle in India and came into frequent contact with the aborigines, they had unconsciously to imbibe some of the gross superstitions of the latter, and thus in course of time a superstructure of monstrous growth sprang up, ready to swallow even the purer and more othodox creed. Hence the protests recorded from time to time in the Mahábhárata and in the law-books against the vulgarity of the aims of the A. V. and the refusal to accept its authority (see *ante* p. viii). But on the other hand, by virtue of its profound hold upon popular beliefs and because indispensable sciences like medicine and astrology are Atharvanic by distiction, the fourth Veda has always retained a considerable following.¹ If we turn to Europe in the middle ages, we find the professors of the "black art" sharing a fate similar to the priests of the Atharvanic rites,—now openly received into the bosom of the holy church—now anathematised and flung into prison.²