But the Father-god of the Brāhmanas is still a temporary creator, and thus he appears now (ib. 17): The Father-god brooded over[10] the worlds, and from them extracted essences, fire from earth, wind from air, sun from sky. These three divinities (the triad, fire, wind, and sun) he brooded over, and from them extracted essences, the Rig Veda from fire, the Yajur Veda from wind, the Sāma Veda from sun. In the preceding the northern path of them that know the absolute (brahma) has been described, and it was said that they return no more to earth. Now follows the southern path of them that only partly know brahma:

"He that knows the oldest, jyeṣtham and the best, cre[s]tham, becomes the oldest and the best. Now breath is oldest and best" (then follows the famous parable of the senses and breath, 5. 1. I). This (found elsewhere) is evidently regarded as a new doctrine, for, after the deduction has been made that, because a creature can live without senses, and even without mind, but cannot live without breath, therefore the breath is the 'oldest and best,' the text continues, 'if one told this to a dry stick, branches would be produced and leaves put forth' (5. 2. 3).[11]] The path of him that partly knows the brahma which is expressed in breath, etc, is as follows: He goes to the moon, and, when his good works are used up, he (ultimately mist) rains down, becoming seed, and begins life over again on earth, to become like the people who eat him (5. 10. 6); they that are good become priests, warriors, or members of the third estate; while the bad become dogs, hogs, or members of the low castes.[12] A story is now told, instructive as illustrating the time. Five great doctors of the law came together to discuss what is Spirit, what is brahma. In the end they are taught by a king that the universal Spirit is one's own spirit (5. 18. 1).

It is interesting to see that, although the Rig Veda distinctly says that 'being was born of not-being' (asatas sad ajāyata, X. 72. 3),[13] yet not-being is here derived quite as emphatically from being. For in the philosophical explanation of the universe given in 6. 2. 1 ff. one reads: "Being alone existed in the beginning, one, and without a second. Others say 'not-being alone' ... but how could being be born of not-being? Being alone existed in the beginning."[14] This being is then represented as sentient. "It saw (and desired), 'may I be many,' and sent forth fire (or heat); fire (or heat) desired and produced water; water, food (earth); with the living spirit the divinity entered fire, water, and earth" (6. 3). As mind comes from food, breath from water, and speech from fire, all that makes a man is thus derived from the (true) being (6. 7. 6); and when one dies his speech is absorbed into mind, his mind into breath, his breath into fire (heat), and heat into the highest godhead (6. 8. 7). This is the subtle spirit, that is the Spirit, that is the True, and this is the spirit of man. Now comes the grand conclusion of the Chāndogya. He who knows the ego escapes grief. What is the ego? The Vedas are names, and he that sees brahma in the Vedas is indeed (partly) wise; but speech is better than a name; mind is better than speech; will is better than mind; meditation, better than will; reflection, than meditation; understanding, than reflection; power, than understanding; food, than power; water, than food; heat (fire), than water; ether, than heat; memory, than ether; hope, than memory; breath (=spirit), than hope. In each let one see brahma; ego in All. Who knows this is supreme in knowledge; but more supreme in knowledge is he that knows that in true (being) is the highest being. True being is happiness; true being is ego; ego is all; ego is the absolute.[15]

The relativity oL divinity is the discovery of the Upanishads. And the relativity of happiness hereafter is the key-note of their religious philosophy. Pious men are of three classes, according to the completed system. Some are good men, but they do not know enough to appreciate, intellectually or spiritually, the highest. Let this class meditate on the Vedas. They desire wealth, not freedom. The second class wish, indeed, to emancipate themselves; but to do so step by step; not to reach absolute brahma, but to live in bliss hereafter. Let these worship the Spirit as physical life. They will attain to the bliss of the realm of light, the realm of the personal creator. But the highest class, they that wish to emancipate themselves at once, know that physical life is but a form of spiritual life; that the personal creator is but a form of the Spirit; that the Spirit is absolute brahma; and that in reaching this they attain to immortality. These, then, are to meditate on spirit as the highest Spirit, that is, the absolute. To fear heaven as much as hell, to know that knowledge is, after all, the key to brahma; that brahma is knowledge; this is the way to emancipation. The gods are; but they are forms of the ego, and their heaven is mortal. It is false to deny the gods. Indra and the Father-god exist, just as men exist, as transient forms of brahma. Therefore, according to the weakness or strength of a man's mind and heart (desire) is he fitted to ignore gods and sacrifice. To obtain brahma his desires must be weak, his knowledge strong; but sacrifice is not to be put away as useless. The disciplinary teaching of the sacrifice is a necessary preparation for highest wisdom. It is here that the Upanishads, which otherwise are to a great extent on the highway to Buddhism, practically contrast with it. Buddhism ignores the sacrifice and the stadia in a priest's life. The Upanishads retain them, but only to throw them over at the end when one has learned not to need them. Philosophically there is no place for the ritual in the Upanishad doctrine; but their teachers stood too much under the dominion of the Brāhmanas to ignore the ritual. They kept it as a means of perfecting the knowledge of what was essential.

So 'by wisdom' it is said 'one gets immortality.' The Spirit develops gradually in man; by means of the mortal he desires the immortal; whereas other animals have only hunger and thirst as a kind of understanding, and they are reborn according to their knowledge as beasts again. Such is the teaching of another of the Upanishads, the Āitareya Āranyaka.

This Upanishad contains some rather striking passages: "Whatever man attains, he desires to go beyond it; if he should reach heaven itself he would desire to go beyond it" (2. 3. 3. 1). "Brahma is the A, thither goes the ego" (2. 3. 8. 7). "A is the whole of Speech, and Speech is Truth, and Truth is Spirit" (2. 3. 6. 5-14).[16] "The Spirit brooded over the water, and form (matter) was born" (2. 4. 3. 1 ff.); so physically water is the origin of all things" (2. 1. 8. 1).[17] "Whatever belongs to the father belongs to the son, whatever belongs to the son belongs to the father" (ib.). "Man has three births: he is born of his mother, reborn in the person of his son, and finds his highest birth in death" (2. 5).

In the exposition of these two Upanishads one gets at once the sum of them all. The methods, the illustrations, even the doctrines, differ in detail; but in the chief end and object of the Upanishads, and in the principle of knowledge as a means of attaining brahma, they are united. This it is that causes the refutation of the Vedic 'being from not-being.' It is even said in the Āitareya that the gods worshipped breath (the spirit) as being and so became gods (great); while devils worshipped spirit as not-being, and hence became (inferior) devils (2. 1. 8. 6).

It was noticed above that a king instructed priests. This interchange of the roles of the two castes is not unique. In the Kāushītaki Upanishad (4. 19), occurs another instance of a warrior teaching a Brahman. This, with the familiar illustration of a Gandhāra (Kandahar) man, the song of the Kurus, and the absence of Brahmanic literature as such in the list of works, cited vii. 1, would indicate that the Chāndogya was at least as old as the Brāhmana literature.[18]

In their present form several differences remain to be pointed out between the Vedic period and that of the Upanishads. The goal of the soul, the two paths of gods and of brahma, have been indicated. As already explained, the road to the absolute brahma lies beyond the path to the conditioned brahma. Opposed to this is the path that leads to the world of heaven, whence, when good works have been exhausted, the spirit descends to a new birth on earth. The course of this second path is conceived to be the dark half of the moon, and so back to man. Both roads lead first to the moon, then one goes on to brahma, the other returns to earth. It will be seen that good works are regarded as buoying a man up for a time, till, like gas in a balloon, they lose their force, and he sinks down again. What then becomes of the virtue of a man who enters the absolute brahma, and descends no more? He himself goes to the world where there is "no sorrow and no snow," where he lives forever (Brihad Āran. 5. 10); but "his beloved relations get his virtue, and the relations he does not love get his evil" (Kāushīt. Up. 1. 4). In this Upanishad fire, sun, moon, and lightning die out, and reappear as brahma. This is the doctrine of the Goetterdaemmerung, and succession of aeons with their divinities (2. 12). Here again is it distinctly stated that prāna, breath, is brahma; that is, spirit is the absolute (2. 13).

What becomes of them that die ignorant of the ego? They go either to the worlds of evil spirits, which are covered with darkness—the same antithesis of light and darkness, as good and evil, that was seen in the Brāhmanas—or are reborn on earth again like the wicked (Īcā, 3).

It is to be noted that at times all the parts of a man are said to become immortal. For just as different rivers enter the ocean and their names and forms are lost in it, so the sixteen parts of a man sink into the godhead and he becomes without parts and immortal (Pracna Up. 6. 5); a purely pantheistic view of absorption, in distinction from the Vedic view of heaven, which latter, in the form of immortal joy hereafter, still lingers in the earlier Upanishads.

It is further to be observed as the crowning point of these speculations that, just as the bliss of emancipation must not be desired, although it is desirable, so too, though knowledge is the fundamental condition of emancipation, yet is delight in the true a fatal error: "They that revere what is not knowledge enter into blind darkness; they that delight in knowledge come as it were into still greater darkness" (Icā, 9). Here, what is not real knowledge means good works, sacrifice, etc. But the sacrifice is not discarded. To those people capable only of attaining to rectitude, sacrifices, and belief in gods there is given some bliss hereafter; but to him that is risen above this, who knows the ego (Spirit) and real being, such bliss is no bliss. His bliss is union with the Spirit.

This is the completion of Upanishad philosophy. Before it is a stage where bliss alone, not absorption, is taught.[19] But what is the ego, spirit or self (ātmā)? First of all it is conscious; next it is not the Person, for the Person is produced by the ātmā. Since this Person is the type of the personal god, it is evident that the ego is regarded as lying back of personality. Nevertheless, the teachers sometimes stop with the latter. The developed view is that the immortality of the personal creator is commensurate only with that of the world which he creates. It is for this reason that in the Mundaka (1. 2. 10) it is said that fools regard fulfillment of desire in heavenly happiness as the best thing; for although they have their 'reward in the top of heaven, yet, when the elevation caused by their good works ends, as it will end, when the buoyant power of good works is exhausted, then they drop down to earth again. Hence, to worship the creator as the ātmā is indeed productive of temporary pleasure, but no more. "If a man worship another divinity, devatā, with the idea that he and the god are different, he does not know" (Brihad Āran. Up. 1. 4. 10). "Without passion and without parts" is the brahma (Mund. 2. 2. 9). The further doctrine, therefore, that all except brahma is delusion is implied here, and the "extinction of gods in brahma" is once or twice formulated.[20] The fatal error of judgment is to imagine that there is in absolute being anything separate from man's being. When personified, this being appears as the supreme Person, identical with the ego, who is lord of what has been and what will be. By perceiving this controlling spirit in one's own spirit (or self) one obtains eternal bliss; "when desires cease, the mortal becomes immortal; he attains brahma here" in life (Katha Up. 2. 5. 12; 6. 14; Br. Āran. Up. 4. 4. 7).

How inconsistent are the teachings of the Upanishads in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters will be evident if one contrast the statements of the different tracts not only with those of other writings of the same sort, but even with other statements in the same Upanishads. Thus the Mundaka teaches first that Brahmā, the personal creator, made the world and explained brahma (1. 1. 1). It then defines brahma as the Imperishable, which, like a spider, sends out a web of being and draws it in again (ib. 6, 7). It states with all distinctness that the (neuter) brahma comes from The (masculine)

One who is all-wise, all-knowing (ib. 9). This heavenly Person is the imperishable ego; it is without form; higher than the imperishable (1. 2. 10 ff.; 2. 1. 2); greater than the great (3. 2. 8). Against this is then set (2. 2. 9) the great being brahma, without passions or parts, i. e., without intelligence such as was predicated of the ātmā; and (3. 1. 3) then follows the doctrine of the personal 'Lord, who is the maker, the Person, who has his birth in brahma' (purusho brahmayonis). That this Upanishad is pantheistic is plain from 3. 2. 6, where Vedānta and Yoga are named. According to this tract the wise go to brahma or to ego (3. 2. 9 and 1. 2. 11), while fools go to heaven and return again.

On the same plane stands the Īcā, where ātmā, ego, Spirit, is the True, the Lord, and is in the sun. Opposed to each other here are 'darkness' and 'immortality,' as fruit, respectively, of ignorance and wisdom.

In the Kāushītaki Upanishad, taken with the meaning put into it by the commentators, the wise man goes to a very different sort of brahma—one where he is met by nymphs, and rejoices in a kind of heaven. This brahma is of two sorts, absolute and conditioned; but it is ultimately defined as 'breath.' Whenever it is convenient, 'breath' is regarded by the commentators as ego, 'spirit'; but one can scarcely escape the conviction that in many passages 'breath' was meant by the speaker to be taken at its face value. It is the vital power. With this vital power (breath or spirit) one in dreamless sleep unites. Indra has nothing higher to say than that he is breath (spirit), conscious and immortal. Eventually the soul after death comes to Indra, or gains the bright heaven. But here too the doctrine of the dying out of the gods is known (as in Tātt. 3. 10. 4). Cosmogonically all here springs from water (1. 4, 6, 7; 2. 1, 12; 3. 1, 2; 4. 20).

Most striking are the contradictions in the Brihad Āranyaka: "In the beginning there was only nothing; this (world) was covered with death, that is hunger;[21] he desired," etc. (1. 2. 1). "In the beginning there was only ego (ātmā)." Ātmā articulated "I am," and (finding himself lonely and unhappy) divided himself into male and female,[22] whence arose men, etc. (1. 4. 1). Again: "In the beginning there was only brahma; this (neuter) knew ātmā ... brahma was the one and only ... it created" (1. 4. 10-11); followed immediately by "he created" (12). And after this, in 17, one is brought back to "in the beginning there was only ātmā; he desired 'let me have a wife.'"

In 2. 3. 1 ff. the explicitness of the differences in brahma makes the account of unusual value. It appears that there are two forms of brahma, one is mortal, with form; the other is immortal, without form. Whatever is other than air and the space between (heaven and earth) is mortal and with form. This is being, its essence is in the sun. On the other hand, the essence of the immortal is the person in the circle (of the sun). In man's body breath and ether are the immortal, the essence of which is the person in the eye. There is a visible and invisible brahma (ātmā); the real brahma is incomprehensible and is described only by negations (3. 4. 1; 9. 26). The highest is the Imperishable (neuter), but this sees, hears, and knows. It is in this that ether (as above) is woven (3. 8. 11). After death the wise man goes to the world of the gods (1. 5. 16); he becomes the ātmā of all beings, just like that deity (1. 5. 20); he becomes identical ('how can one know the knower?' vijnātar) in 2. 4. 12-13; and according to 3. 2. 13, the doctrine of samsāra is extolled ("they talked of karma, extolled karma secretly"), as something too secret to be divulged easily, even to priests.

That different views are recognized is evident from Taitt. 2. 6: "If one knows brahma as asat he becomes only asat (non-existence); if he knows that 'brahma is' (i.e., a sad brahma), people know him as thence existing." Personal ātmā is here insisted on ("He wished 'may I be many'"); and from ātmā, the conscious brahma, in highest heaven, came the ether (2. 1, 6). Yet, immediately afterwards: "In the beginning was the non-existent; thence arose the existent; and That made for himself an ego (spirit, conscious life, ātmā; tad ātmānain svayam akuruta, 2. 7). In man brahma is the sun-brahma. Here too one finds the brahmaṇaḥ parimaras (3. 10. 4 = Kāushīt. 2. 12, dāiva), or extinction of gods in brahma. But what that brahma is, except that it is bliss, and that man after death reaches 'the bliss-making ātmā,' it is impossible to say (3. 6; 2. 8). Especially as the departed soul 'eats and sits down singing' in heaven (3. 10. 5).

The greatest discrepancies in eschatology occur perhaps in the Āitareya Āranyaka. After death one either "gets brahma" (i. 3. 1. 2), "comes near to the immortal spirit" (1. 3. 8. 14), or goes to the "heavenly world." Knowledge here expressly conditions the hereafter; so much so that it is represented not (as above) that fools go to heaven and return, but that all, save the very highest, are to recognize a personal creator (Prajāpati) in breath (egobrahma), and then they will "go to the heavenly world" (2. 3. 8. 5), "become the sun" (2. 1. 8. 14), or "go to gods" (2. 2. 4. 6). Moreover after the highest wisdom has been revealed, and the second class of men has been disposed of, the author still returns to the 'shining sky,' svarga, as the best promise (3). Sinners are born again (2. 1. 1. 5) on earth, although hell is mentioned (2. 3. 2. 5). The origin of world is water, as usual (2. 1. 8. 1). The highest teaching is that all was ātmā, who sent forth worlds (lokān asṛjata), and formed the Person (as guardian of worlds), taking him from waters. Hence ātmā, Prajāpati (of the second-class thinkers), and brahma are the same. Knowledge is brahma (2. 4. 1. 1; 6. 1. 5-7).

In the Kena, where the best that can be said in regard to brahma is that he is tadvana, the one that 'likes this' (or, perhaps, is 'like this'), there is no absorption into a world-spirit. The wise 'become immortal'; 'by knowledge one gets immortality'; 'who knows this stands in heaven' (1. 2; 2. 4; 4. 9). The general results are about those formulated by Whitney in regard to the Katha: knowledge gives continuation of happiness in heaven; the punishment of the unworthy is to continue samsāra, the round of rebirths. Hell is not mentioned in the Āitareya Upanishad itself but in the Āranyaka[23] (2. 3. 2. 5). That, however, a union with the universal ātmā (as well as heaven) is desired, would seem to be the case from several of the passages cited above, notably Brihad Āran., i. 5. 20 (sa evaṁvit sarveṣām bhūtānām ātmā bhavati, Yathā iṣā devatāivam sa); 'he that knows this becomes the ātmā of all creatures, as is that divinity so is he'; though this is doubtless the ānandamaya ātmā, or joy-making Spirit (Tāitt. 2. 8).

Again two forms of brahma are explained (Māit. Up. 6. 15 ff.): There are two forms of brahma, time and not-time. That which was before the sun is not-time and has no parts. Time and parts begin with the sun. Time is the Father-god, the Spirit. Time makes and dissolves all in the Spirit. He knows the Veda who knows into what Time itself is dissolved. This manifest time is the ocean of creatures. But brahma exists before and after time.[24]

As an example of the best style of the Upanishads we will cite a favorite passage (given no less than four times in various versions) where the doctrine of absorption is most distinctly taught under the form of a tale. It is the famous

DIALOGUE OF YĀJNAVALKYA AND MĀITREYĪ.[25]

Yājnavalkya had two wives, Māitreyī and Kātyāyani. Now Māitreyī was versed in holy knowledge (brahma), but Kātyāyani had only such knowledge as women have. But when Yājnavalkya was about to go away into the forest (to become a hermit), he said: 'Māitreyī, I am going away from this place. Behold, I will make a settlement between thee and that Kātyāyani.' Then said Māitreyī: 'Lord, if this whole earth filled with wealth were mine, how then? should I be immortal by reason of this wealth?' 'Nay,' said Yājnavalkya. 'Even as is the life of the rich would be thy life; by reason of wealth one has no hope of immortality.' Then said Māitreyī: 'With what I cannot be immortal, what can I do with that? whatever my Lord knows even that tell me.' And Yājnavalkya said: 'Dear to me thou art, indeed, and fondly speakest. Therefore I will explain to thee and do thou regard me as I explain.' And he said: 'Not for the husband's sake is a husband dear, but for the ego's sake is the husband dear. Not for the wife's sake is a wife dear; but for the ego's sake is a wife dear; not for the son's sake are sons dear, but for the ego's sake are sons dear; not for wealth's sake is wealth dear, but for the ego's sake is wealth dear; not for the sake of the Brahman caste is the Brahman caste dear, but for the sake of the ego is the Brahman caste dear; not for the sake of the Warrior caste is the Warrior caste dear, but for love of the ego is the Warrior caste dear; not for the sake of the worlds are worlds dear, but for the sake of the ego are worlds dear; not for the sake of gods are gods dear, but for the ego's sake are gods dear; not for the sake of bhūts (spirits) are bhūts dear, but for the ego's sake are bhuts dear; not for the sake of anything is anything dear, but for love of one's self (ego) is anything (everything) dear; the ego (self) must be seen, heard, apprehended, regarded, Māitreyī, for with the seeing, hearing, apprehending, and regarding of the ego the All is known.... Even as smoke pours out of a fire lighted with damp kindling wood, even so out of the Great Being is blown out all that which is, Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sāma Veda, Atharva (Angiras) Veda, Stories, Tales, Sciences, Upanishads, food, drink, sacrifices; all creatures that exist are blown (breathed) out of this one (Great Spirit) alone. As in the ocean all the waters have their meeting-place; as the skin is the meeting-place of all touches; the tongue, of all tastes; the nose, of all smells; the mind, of all precepts; the heart, of all knowledges; ... as salt cast into water is dissolved so that one cannot seize it, but wherever one tastes it is salty, so this Great Being, endless, limitless, is a mass of knowledge. It arises out of the elements and then disappears in them. After death there is no more consciousness.[26] I have spoken.' Thus said Yājnavalkya. Then said Māitreyī: 'Truly my Lord has bewildered me in saying that after death there is no more consciousness.' And Yājnavalkya said: 'I say nothing bewildering, but what suffices for understanding. For where there is as it were duality (dvāitam), there one sees, smells, hears, addresses, notices, knows another; but when all the universe has become mere ego, with what should one smell, see, hear, address, notice, know any one (else)? How can one know him through whom he knows this all, how can he know the knower (as something different)? The ego is to be described by negations alone, the incomprehensible, imperishable, unattached, unfettered; the ego neither suffers nor fails. Thus, Māitreyī, hast thou been instructed. So much for immortality.' And having spoken thus Yājnavalkya went away (into the forest).

Returning to the Upanishad, of which an outline was given in the beginning of this chapter, one finds a state of things which, in general, may be said to be characteristic of the whole Upanishad period. The same vague views in regard to cosmogony and eschatology obtain in all save the outspoken sectarian tracts, and the same uncertainty in regard to man's future fate prevails in this whole cycle.[27] A few extracts will show this. According to the Chāndogya (4. 17. 1), a personal creator, the old Father-god of the Brāhmanas, Prajāpati, made the elements proceed from the worlds he had 'brooded' over (or had done penance over, abhyatapat). In 3. 19. 1, not-being was first; this became being (with the mundane egg, etc.). In sharp contradiction (6. 2. 1): 'being was the first thing, it willed,' etc., a conscious divinity, as is seen in ib. 3. 2, where it is a 'deity,' producing elements as 'deities' (ib. 8. 6) which it enters 'with the living ātmā,' and so develops names and forms (so Tāitt. 2. 7). The latter is the prevailing view of the Upanishad. In 1. 7. 5 ff. the ātmā is the same with the universal ātmā; in 3. 12. 7, the brahma is the same with ether without and within, unchanging; in 3. 13. 7, the 'light above heaven' is identical with the light in man; in 3. 14. 1, all is brahma (neuter), and this is an intelligent universal spirit. Like the ether is the ātmā in the heart, this is brahma (ib. 2 ff.); in 4. 3. air and breath are the two ends (so in the argument above, these are immortal as distinguished from all else); in 4. 10. 5 yad vāvā kaṁ tad eva kham (brahma is ether); in 4. 15. 1, the ego is brahma; in 5. 18. 1 the universal ego is identified with the particular ego (ātmā); in 6. 8 the ego is the True, with which one unites in dreamless sleep; in 6. 15. 1, into parā devatā or 'highest divinity' enters man's spirit, like salt in water (ib. 13). In 7. 15-26, a view but half correct is stated to be that 'breath' is all, but it is better to know that yo bhūmā tad amṛtam, the immortal (all) is infinity, which rests in its own greatness, with a corrective 'but perhaps it doesn't' (yadi vā na). This infinity is ego and ātmā.[28]

What is the reward for knowing this? One obtains worlds, unchanging happiness, brahma; or, with some circumnavigation, one goes to the moon, and eventually reaches brahma or obtains the worlds of the blessed (5. 10. 10). The round of existence, samsāra, is indicated at 6. 16, and expressly stated in 5. 10. 7 (insects have here a third path). Immortality is forcibly claimed: 'The living one dies not' (6. 11. 3). He who knows the sections 7. 15 to 26 becomes ātmānanda and "lord of all worlds"; whereas an incorrect view gives perishable worlds. In one Upanishad there is a verse (Cvet. 4. 5) which would indicate a formal duality like that of the Sānkhyas;[29] but in general one may say that the Upanishads are simply pantheistic, only the absorption into a world-soul is as yet scarcely formulated. On the other hand, some of the older Upanishads show traces of an atheistic and materialistic (asad) philosophy, which is swallowed up in the growing inclination to personify the creative principle, and ultimately is lost in the erection of a personal Lord, as in the latest Upanishads. This tendency to personify, with the increase of special sectarian gods, will lead again, after centuries, to the rehabilitation of a triad of gods, the trimūrti, where unite Vishnu, Civa, and, with these, who are more powerful, Brahmā, the Prajāpati of the Veda, as the All-god of purely pantheistic systems. In the purer, older form recorded above, the purusha (Person) is sprung from the ātmā. There is no distinction between matter and spirit. Conscious being (sat) wills, and so produces all. Or ātmā comes first; and this is conscious sat and the cause of the worlds; which ātmā eventually becomes the Lord. The ātmā in man, owing to his environment, cannot see whole, and needs the Yoga discipline of asceticism to enable him to do so. But he is the same ego which is the All.

The relation between the absolute and the ego is through will. "This (neuter) brahma willed, 'May I be many,' and created" (Chānd., above). Sometimes the impersonal, and sometimes the personal "spirit willed" (Tāiit. 2. 6). And when it is said, in Brihad Āran. 1. 4. 1, that "In the beginning ego, spirit, ātmā, alone existed," one finds this spirit (self) to be a form of brahma (ib. 10-11). Personified in a sectarian sense, this spirit becomes the divinity Rudra Civa, the Blessed One (Cvetācvatara, 3. 5. 11).[30]

In short, the teachers of the Upanishads not only do not declare clearly what they believed in regard to cosmogonic and eschatological matters, but many of them probably did not know clearly what they believed. Their great discovery was that man's spirit was not particular and mortal, but part of the immortal universal. Whether this universal was a being alive and a personal ātmā, or whether this personal being was but a transient form of impersonal, imperishable being;[31] and whether the union with being, brahma, would result in a survival of individual consciousness,—these are evidently points they were not agreed upon, and, in all probability, no one of the sages was certain in regard to them. Crass identifications of the vital principle with breath, as one with ether, which is twice emphasized as one of the two immortal things, were provisionally accepted. Then breath and immortal spirit were made one. Matter had energy from the beginning, brahma; or was chaos, asat, without being. But when asat becomes sat, that sat becomes brahma, energized being, and to asat there is no return. In eschatology the real (spirit, or self) part of man (ego) either rejoices forever as a conscious part of the conscious world-self, or exists immortal in brahma—imperishable being, conceived as more or less conscious.[32]

The teachers recognize the limitations of understanding: "The gods are in Indra, Indra is in the Father-god, the Father-god (the Spirit) is in brahma"—"But in what is brahma?" And the answer is, "Ask not too much" (Brihad. Āran. Up. 3. 6).

These problems will be those of the future formal philosophy. Even the Upanishads do not furnish a philosophy altogether new. Their doctrine of karma their identification of particular ego and universal ego, is not original. The 'breaths,' the 'nine doors,' the 'three qualities,' the purusha as identical with ego, are older even than the Brāhmanas (Scherman, loc. cit. p. 62).

It is not a new philosophy, it is a new religion that the Upanishads offer.[33] This is no religion of rites and ceremonies, although the cult is retained as helpful in disciplining and teaching; it is a religion for sorrowing humanity. It is a religion that comforts the afflicted, and gives to the soul 'that peace which the world cannot give.' In the sectarian Upanishads this bliss of religion is ever present. "Through knowing Him who is more subtile than subtile, who is creator of everything, who has many forms, who embraces everything, the Blessed Lord—one attains to peace without end" (Cvet. 4. 14-15). These teachers, who enjoin the highest morality ('self-restraint, generosity, and mercy' are God's commandments in Brihad Āran. 5. 2) refuse to be satisfied with virtue's reward, and, being able to obtain heaven, 'seek for something beyond.' And this they do not from mere pessimism, but from a conviction that they will find a joy greater than that of heaven, and more enduring, in that world where is "the light beyond the darkness" (Cvet. 3. 8); "where shines neither sun, moon, stars, lightning, nor fire, but all shines after Him that shines alone, and through His light the universe is lighted" (Mund. 2. 2. 10). This, moreover, is not a future joy. It is one that frees from perturbation in this life, and gives relief from sorrow. In the Chāndogya (7. 1. 3) a man in grief comes seeking this new knowledge of the universal Spirit; "For," says he, "I have heard it said that he who knows the Spirit passes beyond grief." So in the Īcā, though this is a late sectarian work, it is asked, "What sorrow can there be for him to whom Spirit alone has become all things?' (7). Again, "He that knows the joy of brahma, whence speech with mind turns away without apprehending it, fears not" (Tāitt. 2. 4); for "fear comes only from a second" (Brihad Āran. Up. 1. 4. 2), and when one recognizes that all is one he no longer fears death (ib. 4. 4. 15).

Such is the religion of these teachers. In the quiet assumption that life is not worth living, they are as pessimistic as was Buddha. But if, as seems to be the case, the Buddhist believed in the eventual extinction of his individuality, their pessimism is of a different sort. For the teacher of the Upanishads believes that he will attain to unending joy; not the rude happiness of 'heaven-seekers,' but the unchanging bliss of immortal peace. For him that wished it, there was heaven and the gods. These were not denied; they were as real as the "fool" that desired them. But for him that conquered passion, and knew the truth, there was existence without the pain of desire, life without end, freedom from rebirth. The spirit of the sage becomes one with the Eternal; man becomes God.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Compare Cal. Br. ii. 4. 2. 1-6, where the Father-god gives laws of conduct; and Kaushītaki Brahmana Upanishad, 3. 8: "This spirit (breath) is guardian of the world, the lord of the world; he is my spirit" (or, myself), sa ma ātmā. The Brahmanic priest teaches that he is a god like other gods, and goes so far as to say that he may be united with a god after death. The Upanishad philosopher says 'I am God.']

[Footnote 2: Compare Scherman, Philosophische Hymnen, p. 93; above, p. 156.]

[Footnote 3: Or, in other words, the thought of the Brahmanic period (not necessarily of extant Brāhmanas) is synchronous with part of the Vedic collection.]

[Footnote 4: The last additions to this class of literature would, of course, conform in language to their models, just as the late Vedic Mantras conform as well as their composers can make them to the older song or chandas style.]

[Footnote 5: Cited by Mueller in SBE. i. Introd. p. lxxxii.]

[Footnote 6: Compare Weber, Ind. Lit. p. 171; Mueller, loc. cit. p. lxviii.]

[Footnote 7: The relation between the Brāhmanas (ritual works discussed in the last chapter) and the early Upanishads will be seen better with the help of a concrete example. As has been explained before, Rig Veda means to the Hindu not only the 'Collection' of hymns, but all the library connected with this collection; for instance, the two Brāhmanas (of the Rig Veda), namely, the Aitareya and the Kāushītaki (or Cānkhāyana). Now, each of these Brāhmanas concludes with an Āranyaka, that is, a Forest-Book (araṇya, forest, solitude); and in each Forest Book is an Upanishad. For example, the third book of the Kāushītaki Āranyaka is the Kāushītaki Upanishad. So the Chāndogya and Brihad Āranyaka belong respectively to the Sāman and Yajus.]

[Footnote 8: This teaching is ascribed to Cāndilya, to whose heresy, as opposed to the pure Vedantic doctrinc of Cankara, we shall have to revert in a later chapter. The heresy consists, in a word, in regarding the individual spirit as at any time distinct from the Supreme Spirit, though Cāndilya teaches that it is ultimately absorbed into the latter.]

[Footnote 9: "God' Who' is air, air (space) is God 'Who'," as if one said 'either is aether.']

[Footnote 10: 'Did penance over,' as one doing penance remains in meditation. 'Brooded' is Mueller's apt word for this abhi-tap.]

[Footnote 11: Compare Brihad Āran. Up. 6. 3. 7.]

[Footnote 12: This is the karma or samsāra doctrine.]

[Footnote 13: In J.U.B. alone have we noticed the formula asserting that 'both being and not-being existed in the beginning' (1. 53. 1; JAOS. XVI. 130).]

[Footnote 14: Opposed is 3. 19. 1 and Tāitt. Up. 2. 7. 1 (Br. II. 2. 9. 1, 10): "Not-being was here in the beginning. From it arose being." And so Cat. Br. VI. 1. 1. 1 (though in word only, for here not-being is the seven spirits of God!)]

[Footnote 15: As the Vedic notion of not-being existing before being is refuted, so the Atharvan homage to Time as Lord is also derided (Cvet. 6) in the Upanishads. The supreme being is above time, as he is without parts (ib.). In this later Upanishad wisdom, penance, and the grace of God are requisite to know brahma.]

[Footnote 16: This Vedic [Greek: Adgos] doctrine is conspicuous in the Brāhmana. Compare Cat. Br. VII. 5. 2. 21: "Vāc ([Greek: Adgos]) is the Unborn one; from Vāc the all-maker made creatures." See Weber, Ind. Stud. IX. 477 ff.]

[Footnote 17: Compare J.U.B. i. 56. 1, 'Water (alone) existed in the beginning.' This is the oldest and latest Hindu explanation of the matter of the physical universe. From the time of the Vedas to mediaeval times, as is recorded by the Greek travellers, water is regarded as the original element.]

[Footnote 18: The Gandhāra might indicate a late geographical expansion as well as an early heritage, so that this is not conclusive.]

[Footnote 19: Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, has sought to show that the pure Vedantism of Cankara is the only belief taught in the Upanishads, ignoring the weight of those passages that oppose his (in our view) too sweeping assertion.]

[Footnote 20: See the Parimara described, Āit. Br. VIII. 28. Here brahma is wind, around which die five divinities—lightning in rain, rain in moon, moon in sun, sun in fire, fire in wind—and they are reborn in reverse order. The 'dying' is used as a curse. The king shall say, 'When fire dies in wind then may my foe die,' and he will die; so when any of the other gods dies around brahma.]

[Footnote 21: Compare sterben, starve.]

[Footnote 22: The androgynous creator of the Brāhmanas.]

[Footnote 23: We cannot, however, quite agree with Whitney who, loc. cit. p. 92, and Journal, xiii, p. ciii ff., implies that belief in hell comes later than this period. This is not so late a teaching. Hell is Vedic and Brahmanic.]

[Footnote 24: This, in pantheistic style, is expressed thus (Cvet. 4): "When the light has arisen there is no day no night, neither being nor not-being; the Blessed One alone exists there. There is no likeness of him whose name is Great Glory."]

[Footnote 25: Brihad Āranyaka Upanishad, 2.4; 4. 5.]

[Footnote 26: Na pretya saṁjnā 'sti.]

[Footnote 27: Some of the Upanishads have been tampered with, so that all of the contradictions may not be due to the composers. Nevertheless, as the uncertainty of opinion in regard to cosmogony is quite as great as that in respect of absorption, all the vagueness cannot properly be attributed to the efforts of later systematizers to bring the Upanishads into their more or less orthodox Vedantism.]

[Footnote 28: In 4. 10. 5 kam is pleasure, one with ether as brahma, not as wrongly above, p. 222, the god Ka.]

[Footnote 29: This Upanishad appears to be sectarian, perhaps an early Civaite tract (dualistic), if the allusion to Rudra Civa, below, be accepted as original.]

[Footnote 30: As is foreshadowed in the doctrine of grace by Vāc in the Rig Veda, in the Cvet, the Katha, and the Mund. Upanishads (K. 2. 23; M. 3. 2. 3), but nowhere else, there enters, with the sectarian phase, that radical subversion of the Upanishad doctrine which becomes so powerful at a later date, the teaching that salvation is a gift of God. "This Spirit is not got by wisdom; the Spirit chooses as his own the body of that man whom He chooses."]

[Footnote 31: See above. As descriptive of the immortal conscious Spirit, there is the famous verse: "If the slayer thinks to slay, if the slain thinks he is slain; they both understand not; this one (the Spirit) slays not, and is not slain" (Katha, 2. 19); loosely rendered by Emerson, 'If the red slayer think he slays,' etc.]

[Footnote 32: The fact remarked by Thibaut that radically different systems of philosophy are built upon the Upanishads is enough to show how ambiguous are the declarations of the latter.]

[Footnote 33: Compare Barth, Religions, p. 76.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XI.

THE POPULAR BRAHMANIC FAITH

For a long time after the Vedic age there is little that gives one an insight into the views of the people. It may be presumed, since the orthodox systems never dispensed with the established cult, that the form of the old Vedic creed was kept intact. Yet, since the real belief changed, and the cult became more and more the practice of a formality, it becomes necessary to seek, apart from the inherited ritual, the faith which formed the actual religion of the people. Inasmuch as this phase of Hindu belief has scarcely been touched upon elsewhere, it may be well to state more fully the object of the present chapter.

We have shown above that the theology of the Vedic period had resulted, before its close, in a form of pantheism, which was accompanied, as is attested by the Atharva Veda, with a demonology and witch-craft religion, the latter presumably of high antiquity. Immediately after this come the esoteric Brāhmanas, in which the gods are, more or less, figures in the eyes of the priests, and the form of a Father-god rises into chief prominence, being sometimes regarded as the creative force, but at all times as the moral authority in the world. At the end of this period, however, and probably even before this period ended, there is for the first time, in the Upanishads, a new religion, that, in some regards, is esoteric. Hitherto the secrets of religious mysteries had been treated as hidden priestly wisdom, not to be revealed. But, for the most part, this wisdom is really nonsense; and when it is said in the Brāhmanas, at the end of a bit of theological mystery, that it is a secret, or that 'the gods love that which is secret,' one is not persuaded by the examples given that this esoteric knowledge is intellectually valuable. But with the Upanishads there comes the antithesis of inherited belief and right belief. The latter is public property, though it is not taught carelessly. The student is not initiated into the higher wisdom till he is drilled in the lower. The most unexpected characters appear in the role of instructors of priests, namely, women, kings, and members of the third caste, whose deeper wisdom is promulgated oftentimes as something quite new, and sometimes is whispered in secret. Pantheism, samsāra,[1] and the eternal bliss of the individual spirit when eventually it is freed from further transmigration,—these three fundamental traits of the new religion are discussed in such a way as to show that they had no hold upon the general public, but they were the intellectual wealth of a few. Some of the Upanishads hide behind a veil of mystery; yet many of them, as Windisch has said, are, in a way, popular; that is, they are intended for a general public, not for priests alone. This is especially the case with the pantheistic Upanishads in their more pronounced form. But still it is only the very wise that can accept the teaching. It is not the faith of the people.

Epic literature, which is the next living literature of the Brahmans, after the Upanishads, takes one, in a trice, from the beginnings of a formal pantheism, to a pantheism already disintegrated by the newer worship of sectaries. Here the impersonal ātmā, or nameless Lord, is not only an anthropomorphic Civa, as in the late Upanishads, where the philosophic brahma is equated with a long recognized type of divinity, but ātmā is identified with the figure of a theomorphic man.

Is there, then, nothing with which to bridge this gulf?

In our opinion the religion of the law-books, as a legitimate phase of Hindu religion, has been too much ignored. The religion of Upanishad and Vedānta, with its attractive analogies with modern speculation, has been taken as illustrative of the religion of a vast period, to the discrediting of the belief represented in the manuals of law. To these certainly the name of literature can scarcely be applied, but in their rapport with ordinary life they will be found more apt than are the profounder speculations of the philosophers to reflect the religious belief taught to the masses and accepted by them.

The study of these books casts a broad light upon that interval between the Vedic and epic periods wherein it is customary to imagine religion as being, in the main, cult or philosophy. Nor does the interest cease with the yield of necessarily scanty yet very significant facts in regard to eschatological and cosmogonic views. The gods themselves are not what they are in the rites of the cunning priests or in the dogmas of the sages. In the Hindu law there is a reversion to Vedic belief; or rather not a reversion, but here one sees again, through the froth of rites and the murk of philosophy, the under-stream of faith that still flows from the old fount, if somewhat discolored, and waters the heart of the people.

At just what time was elaborated the stupendous system of rites, which are already traditional in the Brāhmanas, can never be known. Some of these rites have to do with special ceremonies, such as the royal inauguration, some are stated soma-sacrifices.[2] Opposed to these soma-feasts is the simpler and older fire-cult, which persists in the house-rituals. All of these together make up a sightly array of sacrifices.[3] The soma-ritual is developed in the Brāhmanas. But with this class of works there must have been from ancient times another which treated of the fire-ritual, and of which the more modern representatives are the extant Sūtras. It is with Sūtras that legal literature begins, but these differ from the ritualistic Sūtras. Yet both are full of religious meat. In these collections, even in the more special, there is no arrangement that corresponds to western ideas of order. In a completed code, for example, there is a rough distribution of subjects under different heads, but the attempt is only tentative, and each work presents the appearance of a heterogeneous mass of regulations and laws, from which one must pick out the law for which he is seeking. The earlier legal works were in prose; the later evolved codes, of which there is a large number, in metre. It is in these two classes of house-ritual and law-ritual, which together constitute what is called Smriti, tradition-ritual (in distinction from the so-called Cruti, revelation-ritual), that one may expect to find the religion of the time; not as inculcated by the promoters of mystery, nor yet as disclosed by the philosopher, but as taught (through the priest) to the people, and as accepted by them for their daily guidance in matters of every-day observance. We glance first at the religious observances, for here, as in the case of the great sacrifices, a detailed examination would be of no more value than a collective impression; unless, indeed, one were hunting for folk-lore superstitions, of which we can treat now only in the mass. It is sufficient to understand that, according to the house-ritual (gṛhya-sūtra) and the law-ritual (dharma-sūtra, and dharma-cāstra),[4] for every change in life there was an appropriate ceremony and a religious observance; for every day, oblations (three at least); for every fortnight and season, a sacrifice. Religious formulae were said over the child yet unborn. From the moment of birth he was surrounded with observances.[5] At such and such a time the child's head was shaved; he was taken out to look at the sun; made to eat from a golden spoon; invested with the sacred cord, etc, etc. When grown up, a certain number of years were passed with a Guru, or tutor, who taught the boy his Veda; and to whom he acted as body-servant (a study and office often cut short in the case of Aryans who were not priests). Of the sacraments alone, such as the observances to which we have just alluded, there are no less than forty according to Gautama's laws (the name-rite, eating-rite, etc.). The pious householder who had once set up his own fire, that is, got married, must have spent most of his time, if he followed directions, in attending to some religious ceremony. He had several little rites to attend to even before he might say his prayers in the morning; and since even to-day most of these personal regulations are dutifully observed, one may assume that in the full power of Brahmanhood they were very straitly enforced.[6]

It is, therefore, important to know what these works, so closely in touch with the general public, have to say in regard to religion. What they inculcate will be the popular theology of completed Brahmanism. For these books are intended to give instruction to all the Aryan castes, and, though this instruction filtrates through the hands of the priest, one may be sure that the understanding between king and priest was such as to make the code the real norm of justice and arbiter of religious opinions. For instance, when one reads that the king is a prime divinity, and that, quid pro quo, the priest may be banished, but never may be punished corporally by the king, because the former is a still greater divinity, it may be taken for granted that such was received opinion. When we come to take up the Hinduism of the epic we shall point out that that work contains a religion more popular even than that of the legal literature, for one knows that this latter phase of religion was at first not taught at all, but grew up in the face of opposition. But for the present, before the rise of epic 'Hinduism,' and before taking up the heretical writings, it is a great gain to be able to scan a side of religion that may be called popular in so far as it evidently is the faith which not only was taught to the masses, but which, as is universally assumed in the law, the masses accept; whereas philosophers alone accept the ātmā religion of the Upanishads, and the Brāhmanas are not intended for the public at all, but only for initiated priests.

What, then, is the religious belief and the moral position of the Hindu law-books? In how far has philosophy affected public religion, and in what way has a reconciliation been affected between the contradictory beliefs in regard to the gods; in regard to the value of works on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other; in regard to hell as a means of punishment for sin on the one hand, and reincarnation (samsāra) on the other; in regard to heaven as a reward of good deeds on the one hand, and absorption into God on the other; in regard to a personal creator on the one hand, and a First Cause without personal attributes on the other?

For the philosophical treatises are known and referred to in the early codes; so that, although the completed systems post-dated the Sūtras, the cosmical and theological speculations of the earlier Upanishads were familiar to the authors of the legal systems.

The first general impression produced by a perusal of the law-books is that the popular religion has remained unaffected by philosophy. And this is correct in so far as that it must be put first in describing the codes, which, in the main, in keeping the ancient observances, reflect the inherited faith. When, therefore, one says that pantheism[7] succeeded polytheism in India, he must qualify the assertion. The philosophers are pantheists, but what of the vulgar? Do they give up polytheism; are they inclined to do so, or are they taught to do so? No. For there is no formal abatement in the rigor of the older creed. Whatever the wise man thought, and whatever in his philosophy was the instruction which he imparted to his peers, when he dealt with the world about him he taught his intellectual inferiors a scarcely modified form of the creed of their fathers. How in his own mind this wise man reconciled the two sets of opinion has been shown above. The works of sacrifice, with all the inherited belief implied by them, were for him preparatory studies. The elasticity of his philosophy admitted the whole world of gods, as a temporary reality, into his pantheistic scheme. It was, therefore, neither the hypocrisy of the Roman augur, nor the fear of results that in his teaching held him to the inheritance he had received. Gods, ghosts, demons, and consequently sacrifices, rites, ordeals, and formulae were not incongruous with his philosophical opinions. He himself believed in these spiritual powers and in the usefulness of serving them. It is true that he believed in their eventual doom, but so far as man was concerned they were practically real. There was, therefore, not only no reason why the sage should not inculcate the old rites, but there was every reason why he should. Especially in the case of pious but ignorant people, whose wisdom was not yet developed to a full appreciation of divine relativity, was it incumbent on him to keep them, the lower castes, to the one religion that they could comprehend.

It is thus that the apparent inconsistency in exoteric and esoteric beliefs explains itself. For the two are not contradictory. They do not exclude each other. Hindu pantheism includes polytheism with its attendant patrolatry, demonology, and consequent ritualism.[8]

With rare exceptions it was only the grosser religion that the vulgar could understand; it was only this that they were taught and believed.

Thus the old Vedic gods are revered and worshipped by name. The Sun, Indra, and all the divinities embalmed in ritual, are placated and 'satiated' with offerings, just as they had been satiated from time immemorial. But no hint is given that this is a form; or that the Vedic gods are of less account than they had been. Moreover, it is not in the inherited formulae of the ritual alone that this view is upheld. To be sure, when philosophical speculation is introduced, the Father-god comes to the fore; Brahmā[9] sits aloft, indulgently advising his children, as he does in the intermediate stage of the Brāhmanas; and ātmā (brahma) too is recognized to be the real being of Brahmā, as in the Upanishads.[10] But none of this touches the practice of the common law, where the ordinary man is admonished to fear Yama's hell and Varuna's bonds, as he would have been admonished before the philosopher grew wiser than the Vedic seers. Only personified Right, Dharma, takes his seat with shadowy Brahmā among the other gods.[11]

What is the speech which the judge on the bench is ordered to repeat to the witnesses? Thus says the law-giver Manu: "When the witnesses are collected together in the court, in the presence of the plaintiff and defendant, the (Brahman) judge should call upon them to speak, kindly addressing them in the following manner: 'Whatever you know has been done in this affair ... declare it all. A witness who in testifying speaks the truth reaches the worlds where all is plenty ... such testimony is honored by Brahmā. One who in testifying speaks an untruth is, all unwilling, bound fast by the cords of Varuna,[12] till an hundred births are passed.' ... (Then, speaking to one witness): 'Spirit (soul) is the witness for the Spirit, and the Spirit is likewise the refuge of the Spirit. Despise not, therefore, thine own spirit (or soul), the highest witness of man. Verily, the wicked think 'no one sees us,' but the gods are looking at them, and also the person within (conscience). Dyaus, Earth, the Waters, (the person in the) heart, Moon, Sun, Fire, Yama, Wind, Night, the twin Twilights, and Dharma know the conduct of all corporeal beings.... Although, O good man, thou regardest thyself, thinking, 'I am alone,' yet the holy one (saint) who sees the evil and the good, stands ever in thy heart. It is in truth god Yama, the son of Vivasvant, who resideth in thy heart; if thou beest not at variance with him (thou needest) not (to) go to the Ganges and to the (holy land of) the Kurus (to be purified).'"

Here there is no abatement in Vedic polytheism, although it is circled round with a thin mist from later teachings. In the same way the ordinary man is taught that at death his spirit (soul) will pass as a manikin out of his body and go to Yama to be judged; while the feasts to the Manes, of course, imply always the belief in the individual activity of dead ancestors. Such expressions as 'The seven daughters of Varuna' (sapta vāruṇīr imās, Ācv. Grih. S. 2. 3. 3) show that even in detail the old views are still retained. There is no advance, except in superstitions,[13] on the main features of the old religion. So the same old fear of words is found, resulting in new euphemisms. One must not say 'scull,' kapāla, but call it bhagāla, 'lucky' (Gaut. 9. 21); a factor in the making of African languages also, according to modern travellers. Images of the gods are now over-recognized by the priest, for they must be revered like the gods themselves (ib. 12; Pār. Grih. S. 3. 14. 8. etc.). Among the developed objects of the cult serpents now occupy a prominent place. They are mentioned as worshipful in the Brāhmanas. In the Sūtra period offerings are made to snakes of earth, air, and heaven; the serpents are 'satiated' along with gods, plants, demons, etc. (Cāṅkh. 4. 9. 3; 15. 4; Ācv. 2. 1. 9; 3. 4. 1; Pārask. 2. 14. 9) and blood is poured out to them (Ācv. 4. 8. 27.).[14] But other later divinities than those of the earliest Veda, such as Wealth (Kubera), and Dharma, have crept into the ritual. With the Vedic gods appears as a divinity in Khād. 1. 5. 31 the love-god Kāma, of the Atharvan; while on the other hand Rudra the beast-lord (Pacupati, Lord of Cattle), the 'kindly' Civa, appears as 'great god,' whose names are Cankara, Prishātaka, Bhava, Carva, Ugra, Icāna (Lord); who has all names and greatness, while he yet is described in the words of the older text as 'the god that desires to kill' (Ācv. 2. 2. 2; 4. 8. 9, 19,[15] 29, 32; Āit. Br. 3. 34). On the other hand Vishnu is also adored, and that in connection with the [Greek: logos], or Vāc (ib. 3. 3. 4). Quite in Upanishad manner—for it is necessary to show that these were then really known—is the formula 'thou art a student of prāṇa (Breath,) and art given over to Ka' (ib. 1. 20. 8.), or 'whom?' In Ācvalāyana no Upanishads are given in the list of literature, which includes the 'Eulogies of men,' Itihāsas, Purānas, and even the Mahābhārata (3. 3. 1; 4. 4). But in 1. 13. 1, Upanishad-rites (and that of a very domestic nature) are recognized, which would corroborate the explanation of Upanishad given above, as being at first a subsidiary work, dealing with minor points.[16] Something of the sciolism of the Upanishads seems to lie in the prayer that of the four paths on which walk the gods the mortal may be led in that which bestows 'freedom from death' (Pār. 3. 1. 2); and many of the teachers famous in the Upanishads are now revered by name like gods (Ācv. 3. 4. 4, etc.).

On turning from these domestic Sūtras to the legal Sūtras it becomes evident that the pantheistic doctrine of the Upanishads, and in part the Upanishads themselves, were already familiar to the law-makers, and that they influenced, in some degree, the doctrines of the law, despite the retention of the older forms. Not only is samsāra the accepted doctrine, but the ātmā, as if in a veritable Upanishad, is the object of religious devotion. Here, however, this quest is permitted only to the ascetic, who presumably has performed all ritualistic duties and passed through the stadia that legally precede his own.

Of all the legal Sūtra-writers Gautama is oldest, and perhaps is pre-buddhistic. Turning to his work one notices first that the Mīmāmsist is omitted in the list of learned men (28. 49);[17] but since the Upanishads and Vedānta are expressly mentioned, it is evident that the author of even the oldest Sūtra was acquainted with whatever then corresponded to these works.[18] The opposed teaching of hell versus samsāra is found in Gautama. But there is rather an interesting attempt to unite them. Ordinarily it is to hell and heaven that reference is made, e.g., 'the one that knows the law obtains the heavenly world' (28. 52); 'if one speak untruth to a teacher, even in thought, even in respect to little things, he slays seven men after and before him' (seven descendants and seven ancestors, 23. 31). So in the case of witnesses: 'heaven (is the fruit) for speaking the truth; otherwise hell' (13. 7); 'for stealing (land) hell' (is the punishment, ib. 17). Now and then comes the philosophical doctrine: 'one does not fall from the world of Brahmā' (9. 74); 'one enters into union and into the same world with Brahmā' (8. 25).

But in 21. 4-6 there occurs the following statement: 'To be an outcast is to be deprived of the works of the twice-born, and hereafter to be deprived of happiness; this some (call) hell.' It is evident here that the expression asiddhis (deprivation of success or happiness) is placed optionally beside naraka (hell) as the view of one set of theologians compared with that of another; 'lack of obtaining success, i.e., reward' stands parallel to 'hell.' In the same chapter, where Manu says that he who assaults a Brahman "obtains hell for one hundred years" (M. xi. 207), Gautama (21. 20) says "for one hundred years, lack of heaven" (asvargyam), which may mean hell or the deprivation of the result of merit, i.e., one hundred years will be deducted from his heavenly life. In this case not a new and better birth but heaven is assumed to be the reward of good acts. Now if one turns to 11. 29-30 he finds both views combined. In the parallel passage in Āpastamba only better or worse re-births are promised as a reward for good or evil (2. 5. 11. 10-11); but here it is said: "The castes and orders that remain by their duty, having died, having enjoyed the fruits of their acts, with the remnant of their (merit) obtain re-birth, having an excellent country, caste, and family; having long life, learning, good conduct, wealth, happiness, and wisdom. They of different sort are destroyed in various ways." Here, heavenly joys (such as are implied by niḥcreyasam in 26) are to be enjoyed first, and a good birth afterwards, and by implication one probably has to interpret the next sentence to mean 'they are sent to hell and then re-born in various low births.' This, too, is Manu's rule (below). At this time the sacred places which purify are in great vogue, and in Gautama a list of them is given (19. 14), viz.: "all mountains, all rivers, holy pools, places of pilgrimage (i.e., river-fords, tirthāni), homes of saints, cow-pens, and altars." Of these the tirthas are particularly interesting, as they later become of great importance, thousands of verses in the epic being devoted to their enumeration and praise.

Gautama says also that ascetics, according to some teachers, need not be householders first (3. 1), and that the Brahman ascetic stays at home during the rainy season, like the heretic monks (ib. 13). If one examine the relative importance of the forms and spirit of religion as taught in this, the oldest dharma-sūtra,[19] he will be impressed at first with the tremendous weight laid on the former as compared with the latter. But, as was said apropos of the Brahmanic literature, one errs who fails to appreciate the fact that these works are intended not to give a summary of religious conduct, but to inculcate ceremonial rules. Of the more importance, therefore, is the occasional pause which is made to insist, beyond peradventure, on the superiority of moral rules. A very good instance of this is found in Gautama. He has a list of venial sins. Since lying is one of the most heinous offences to a Hindu lawgiver, and the penances are severe, all the treatises state formally that an untruth uttered in fun, or when one is in danger, or an oath of the sort implied by Plato: [Greek: aphrodision orkon ou phasin einai],—all these are venial, and so are lies told to benefit a (holy) cow, or to aid a priest; or told from religious motives of any sort without self-interest. This is almost the only example of looseness in morals as taught in the law. But the following case shows most plainly the importance of morality as opposed to formal righteousness. After all the forty sacraments (to which allusion was made above), have been recounted, there are given 'eight good qualities of the soul,' viz., mercy, forbearance, freedom from envy, purity, calmness, correct behavior, freedom from greed and from covetousness. Then follows: "He that has (performed) the forty sacraments but has not the eight good qualities enters not into union with Brahmā, nor into the heaven of Brahmā.[20] But he that has (performed) only a part of the forty sacraments and has the eight good qualities enters into union with Brahmā, and into the heaven of Brahmā." This is as near to heresy as pre-buddhistic Brahmanism permitted itself to come.

In the later legal Sūtra of the northern Vasistha[21] occurs a rule which, while it distinctly explains what is meant by liberality, viz., gifts to a priest, also recognizes the 'heavenly reward': "If gifts are given to a man that does not know the Veda the divinities are not satisfied" (3. 8). In the same work (6. 1) 'destruction' is the fate of the sinner that lives without observance of good custom; yet is it said in the same chapter (27): "If a twice-born man dies with the food of a Cūdra (lowest caste) in his belly, he would become a village pig, or he is born again in that (Cūdra's) family"; and, in respect to sons begotten when he has in him such food: "Of whom the food, of him are these sons; and he himself would not mount to heaven ... he does not find the upward path" (29, 28). In ib. 8. 17 the Brahman that observes all the rules 'does not fall from brahmaloka,' i.e., the locality of Brahmā. Further, in 10. 4: "Let (an ascetic) do away with all (sacrificial) works; but let him not do away with one thing, the Veda; for from doing away with the Veda (one becomes) a Cūdra." But, in the same chapter: "Let (the ascetic) live at the end of a village, in a temple ('god's house'), in a deserted house, or at the root of a tree; there in his mind studying the knowledge (of the ātmā) ... so they cite (verses): 'Sure is the freedom from re-birth in the case of one that lives in the wood with passions subdued ... and meditates on the supreme spirit' ... Let him not be confined to any custom ... and in regard to this (freedom from worldly pursuits) they cite these verses: 'There is no salvation (literally 'release') for a philologist (na cabdacāstrābhiratasya mokshas), nor for one that delights in catching (men) in the world, nor for one addicted to food and dress, nor for one pleased with a fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry, teaching, and talking let him not seek alms ... he best knows salvation who (cares for naught)' ... (such are the verses). Let him neither harm nor do good to anything.... Avoidance of disagreeable conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of uprightness, self-praise, blame of others, harm, greed, distraction, wrath, and envy, is a rule that applies to all the stadia of life. The Brahman that is pure, and wears the girdle, and carries the gourd in his hand, and avoids the food of low castes fails not of obtaining the world of Brahmā" (ib. 10. 18 ff.). Yama, the Manes, and evil spirits (asuras) are referred to in the following chapter (20, 25); and hell in the same chapter is declared to be the portion of such ascetics as will not eat meat when requested to do so at a feast to the Manes or gods (11. 34),—rather an interesting verse, for in Manu's code the corresponding threat is that, instead of going to hell 'for as long, i.e., as many years, as the beast has hairs,' as here, one shall experience 'twenty-one rebirths,' i.e., the hell-doctrine in terms of samsāra; while the same image occurs in Manu in the form 'he that slaughters beasts unlawfully obtains as many rebirths as there are hairs on the beast' (v. 35. 38). The passive attitude sometimes ascribed to the Manes is denied; they rejoice over a virtuous descendant (11. 41); a bad one deprives them of the heaven they stand in (16. 36). The authorities on morals are here, as elsewhere, Manu and other seers, the Vedas, and the Father-god, who with Yama gives directions to man in regard to lawful food, etc. (14. 30). The moral side of the code, apart from ritual impurities, is given, as usual, by a list of good and bad qualities (above), while formal laws in regard to theft, murder (especially of a priest), adultery and drunkenness (20. 44; i. 20), with violation of caste-regulations by intercourse with outcasts, are 'great crimes.' Though older than Āpastamba, who mentions the Pūrva-mīmāmsā, Vasistha, too, knows the Vedānta (3. 17), and the Mīmāmsā (vikalpin—tarkin, 3. 20, M. XII. 111).

From the Sūtras of Bāudhāyana's probably southern school something of additional interest is to be gained. Here 'darkness' takes the place of hell (2. 3. 5. 9), which, however, by a citation is explained (in 2. 2. 3. 34) as 'Yama's hall.' A verse is cited to show that the greatest sin is lack of faith (1. 5. 10. 6) and not going to heaven is the reward of folly (ib. 7); while the reward of virtue is to live in heaven for long (4. 8. 7). The same freedom in regard to ascetics as occurs in other Sūtra works is to be found in this author, not in the more suspicious final chapters, but in that part of the work which is accepted as oldest,[22] and agrees with the data found in the Brāhmanas, where the pre-buddhistic monk is called Bhikshu, 'beggar/or Sannyāsin 'he that renounces,' just as these terms are employed in the heretical writings. As among the Jains (and Buddhists), the Brahmanic ascetic carries a few simple utensils, and wanders about from house to house and village to village, begging food. Some authorities (among the Brahmans) say that one may become an ascetic as soon as he has completed his study, though ordinarily this may be done only after passing through the householder stadium. On becoming an ascetic the beggar takes the vow not to injure any living thing (Bāudh. II.10.17.2. 11, 29), exactly as the Jain ascetic takes the vow of non-injury. More than this, as will be seen below, the details of the Brahman ascetic's vows are almost identical with those of the Jain ascetic. He vows not to injure living beings, not to lie, not to steal, to be continent, to be liberal; with the five minor vows, not to get angry, to obey the Teacher, not to be rash, to be cleanly and pure in eating.[23] To this ascetic order in the Brahman priesthood may be traced the origin of the heretical monks. Even in the Brāhmanas occur the termini technici of the Buddhist priesthood, notably the Cramana or ascetic monk, and the word buddha, 'awakened' (pratibudh). The 'four orders' are those enumerated as the householder, student, ascetic, and forest-hermit. If one live in all four orders according to rule, and be serene, he will come to peace, that is, salvation (Āpastamba, 2. 9. 21. I, 2).

According to this later legal writer, who belongs to Southern India,[24] it is only after one has passed through all the preceding stadia that he may give up works (sacrifice, etc.) and devote himself to seeking the ātmā,'wandering about, without caring for earth or heaven, renouncing truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain' (ib. 10, 13). There follows this passage one significant of the opposition between purely Upanishad-ideas and those of the law-givers: 'Acquirement of peace (salvation) depends, it is said, on knowledge; this is opposed by the codes. If on knowledge (depended) acquirement of peace, even here (in this world) one would escape grief' (ib. 14-16). Further, in describing the forest-hermit's austerities (ib. 23. 4 ff.), verses from a Purāna are cited which are virtually Upanishadic: 'The eight and eighty thousand seers who desired offspring (went) south on Aryaman's path, and obtained (as their reward) graves; (but) the eight and eighty thousand who did not desire offspring (went) north on Aryaman's path and make for themselves immortality,' that is to say 'abandon desire for offspring; and of the two paths (which, as the commentator observes, are mentioned in the Chāndogya Upanishad), that which gives immortality instead of death (graves) will be yours.' It is admitted that such ascetics have miraculous powers; but the law-maker emphatically protests in the following Sūtra against the supposition that a rule which stands opposed to the received rites (marriage, sacrifice, etc.) is of any power, and asserts that for the future life an endless reward ('fruit'), called in revelation 'heavenly,' is appointed (ib. 8-11). The next chapter, however, limits, as it were, this dogma, for it is stated that immortality is the re-birth of one's self in the body of one's son, and a verse is cited: 'Thou procreatest progeny, and that's thy immortality, O mortal,' with other verses, which teach that sons that attend to the Vedic rites magnify the fame and heaven of their ancestors, who 'live in heaven until the destruction of creation' (ā bhūtasamptavāt, 2. 9. 24. 5), But 'according to the Bhavishyat-Purāna' after this destruction of creation 'they exist again in heaven as the cause of seed' (ib.) 6. And then follows a quotation from the Father-god: 'We live with those people who do these (following) things: (attend to) the three Vedas, live as students, create children, sacrifice to the Manes, do penance, make sacrifice to the gods, practice liberality; he that extols anything else becomes air (or dust) and perishes' (ib.) 8; and further: 'only they that commit sin perish' (not their ancestors).

The animus of this whole passage is apparent. The law-maker has to contend with them that would reject the necessity of following in order the traditional stadia of a priest's life; that imagine that by becoming ascetics without first having passed through the preliminary stadia they can by knowledge alone attain the bliss that is obtained by union with brahma (or Brahmā). In other words the jurist has to contend with a trait eminently anti-Brahmanistic, even Buddhistic. He denies this value of knowledge, and therewith shows that what he wishes to have inculcated is a belief in the temporary personal existence of the Manes; in heaven till the end of the world-order; and the annihilation of the wicked; while he has a confused or mixed opinion in regard to one's own personal immortality, believing on the one hand that there is a future existence in heaven with the gods, and on the other (rather a materialistic view) that immortality is nothing but continued existence in the person of one's descendants, who are virtually one's self in another body: dehatvam evā'nyat, "only the body is different" (ib) 2. As to cosmogony it is stated to be (not the emanation of an ātmā) but the "emission (creation) of the Father-god and of the seers" (the latter being visible as stars, ib. 13, 14). In this there is plainly a received popular opinion, which reflects the Vedic and Brahmanic stage, and is opposed to the philosophical views of the Upanishads, in other words of the first Vedantic philosophy; while it is mixed up with the late doctrine of the cataclysms, which ruin each succeeding^ creation. The equal annihilation of the wicked (dhvamsanti) and unorthodox (dhvamsate) is to be noticed. They are here subject neither to hell nor to rebirth, but they "become dust and perish" (ib. 8. 9).

Throughout the whole legal literature one will find this same antithesis of views in regard to the fate of good and bad, although it is seldom that annihilation is predicated of the latter. Usually hell or rebirth are their fate—two views, which no one can really reconcile. They are put side by side; exactly as in priestly discussion in India and Europe it still remains an unsettled question as to when the soul becomes immortal.[25] Occidental experience teaches how easy it is for such views to stand together unattacked, although they are the object of speculation. This passage is perhaps, historically, the most satisfactory (as it is philosophically unsatisfactory) that can be cited in answer to the questions that were posed above. But from other parts of legal literature a few more statements may be culled, to illustrate still further the lack of uniformity not only in popular belief, but in the teaching provided for the public. First from the same work of Āpastamba, in 2. 11. 29. 9-10 it is said that if a witness in court perjure himself he shall be punished by the king, "and further, in passing to the next world, hell" (is his portion); whereas "(the reward) for truth is heaven, and praise on the part of all creatures." Now, let one compare first ib. 2. 5. 11. 10-11: "Men of low castes are reborn in higher castes in successive births, and men of high castes in low castes, if they respectively perform and neglect their duties." And then this Vedantic passage of the same author (1. 8. 22 ff.): "Let one (as penance for sin) devote himself to the Yoga (mental discipline) which has to do with the highest ātmā ... Nothing is known higher than the acquisition of ātmā. We shall (now) cite some ātmā-acquisition-verses, viz.: All living creatures (are) the citadel of him that rests in secret, the indestructible one, the immaculate one. Immortal they that devote themselves to the moveless one who has a movable dwelling ... the great one whose body is light, universal, free ... the eternal (part) in all creatures, the wise, immortal, unchanging one, limbless, voiceless, formless, touchless, purest, the highest goal. He that everywhere devotes himself to Him (ātmā as Lord), and always lives accordingly; that by virtue of Yoga recognizes Him, the subtile one, shall rejoice in the top of heaven ... He, ātmā, comprehends all, embraces all, more subtile than a lotus-thread and huger than the earth ... From him are created all bodies; he is the root, he the Everlasting, the Eternal One."

This discipline it will be observed is enjoined as penance and to get rid of faults, that is, to subdue the passions. As the same chapter contains a list of the faults which are to be overcome before one "arrives at peace" (salvation) they may be cited here: "Anger, joy, wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lying, over-eating, calumny, envy, sexual desire, and hate, lack of studying ātmā, lack of Yoga—the destruction of these (faults) is based on Yoga" (mental concentration). On the other hand: "He that devotes himself, in accordance with the law, to avoiding anger, joy, wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lies, over-eating, calumny and envy; and practices liberality, renunciation, uprightness, kindness, subduing (of the passions), self-control; and is at peace with all creatures; and practices Yoga; and acts in an Āryan (noble) way; and does not hurt anything; and has contentment—qualities which, it is agreed, appertain to all the (four) stadia—he becomes sārvagāmin" (ib. 23.6), that is 'one belonging to the all-pervading' (All-soul). There appears to be a contradiction between the former passage, where Yoga is enjoined on ascetics alone; and this, where Yoga is part of the discipline of all four stadia. But what was in the author's mind was probably that all these vices and moral virtues are enumerated as such for all; and he slips in mental concentration as a virtue for the ascetic, meaning to include all the virtues he knows.

A few further illustrations from that special code which has won for itself a preeminent name, 'the law-book of Manu,'[26] will give in epitome the popular religion as taught to the masses; withal even better than this is taught in the Sūtras. For Father Manu's law-book, as the Hindus call it, is a popular Cāstra or metrical[27] composite of law and religion, which reflects the opinion of Brahmanism in its geographical stronghold, whereas the Sūtras emanate from various localities, north and south. To Manu there is but one Holy Land, the Kurus' plain and the region round-about it (near Delhi).

The work takes us forward in time beyond even the latest Sūtras, but the content is such as to show that formal Brahmanism in this latest stage still keeps to its old norm and to Brahmanic models.

It deserves therefore to be examined with care from several points of view if one would escape from the belief of the philosopher to the more general teaching. In this popular religion all morality is conditioned by the castes,[28] which is true also to a certain degree of the earlier Sutras, but the evil fruit of this plant is not there quite so ripe as it is in the later code. The enormity of all crimes depends on who commits them, and against whom they are committed. The three upper castes alone have religious privileges. The lowest caste, outcasts, women, and diseased persons are not allowed to hear the holy texts or take part in ceremonies.[29] As to the rites, they are the inherited ones, sacrifices to gods, offerings to Manes and spirits, and all the ceremonies of house and individual, as explained above; with especial and very minute rules of observance for each of the four stadia of a priest's life.[30] There is no hint in any of this of the importance of the knowledge of the ātmā. But in their proper place the rules of morality and the higher philosophical views are taught. The doctrine of re-birth is formally stated, and the attainment of the world of Brahmā (brahma) by union of ceremonies and knowledge is inculcated. The ascetic should seek, by meditation, to go to Brahmā (or brahma) for when he is utterly indifferent, then, both here and after death, he gains everlasting happiness. Therefore he should study the Vedas, but especially the teachings in regard to the Supreme Spirit, and the Upanishads; studying the Vedānta is a regular part of his final discipline (VI, 74-94). In another part of the work the distinction made in the Upanishads is upheld, that religious acts are of two sorts, one designed to procure bliss, and cause a good man to reach equality with the gods; the other performed without selfish motive; by which latter "even the five elements are overcome," that is, the absorption into brahma is effected. For "among all virtuous acts the knowledge of the spirit, ātmā, is highest; through this is obtained even immortality. One that sees spirit in all things and all things in spirit sacrifices to spirit and enters Brahmā (or brahma)" "The spirit (or self) is all divinities; the All is based on spirit." And in Upanishadic vein the Person is then proclaimed as lord of gods, whom "some call fire, some call Manu, some call Indra, some call air, and some call eternal brahma." But though this be the view of the closing verses, yet in the beginning of the work is this Person represented as being produced from a First Cause. It would be out of place here to analyse the conflicting philosophical views of the Manu code. Even his commentators are uncertain whether he belonged to the pantheistic Vedānta or dualistic Sānkhya school. For them that believe in no Manu the solution is simpler. Although Manu is usually called a Puranic Sankhyan, yet are both schools represented, and that without regard to incongruous teaching. Manu is no more Sankhyan than Vedantic. Indeed in the main part of the work the teaching is clearly more Vedantic. But it suffices here to point out that the ātmā-philosophy and religion is not ignored; it is taught as essential. Nevertheless, it is not taught in such a way as to indicate that it is requisite for the vulgar. On the contrary, it is only when one becomes an ascetic that he is told to devote himself to the pursuit of the knowledge of ātmā. In one passage there is evidence that two replies were given to this fundamental question in regard to works and knowledge. For after enumerating a list of good acts, among which are knowledge and Vedic ceremonies, it is asked which among them most tends to deliverance. The answer is vital. Or it should be, but it is given in an ambiguous form (xii. 85-6): "Amid all these acts the knowledge of self, ātmā, is the highest, for it produces immortality. Amid all these acts the one most productive of happiness, both after death and in this life, is the Vedic ceremony."