BRAHMA (see ante), under which the more comprehensive term "Brahmanism" is employed to specify the system of religious institutions originated and elaborated by the Brahmans, who are and have been from an early period the sacerdotal and dominant caste among the Hindus. The earliest phases of religious thought in India of which a clear notion can now be formed, are exhibited in a body of writings which long ago came to be regarded as sacred, known under the collective name of Veda, "knowledge," or Sruti, The Hindu scriptures consist of four separate collections of sacred texts, including hymns, incantations, and sacrificial forms of prayer. They are: 1, the Rigrecla; 2, the ;5ainan, or Sanzareda; 3, the Yajush, or Yajurceda; 4, the •Athar. ran or Atharrareda. Each of these four text books has attached to it a body of prose writings called Brahmanas, which explain the ceremonial application of the texts and the origin and import of the sacrificial rites for which they were supposed to have been composed. The Samareda and the Yajurreda are for purely ritual purposes, and, as they are composed almost entirelv of verses taken from the Rigreda, are of secondary importance. The hymns of the liigreda are the earliest lyrical productions of the Aryan settlers in India which have come down to us. They all are old, though of varying periods, only the last book having the characteristics of a later appendage. Of the Atharran about a sixth is found in the Rigreda. The religious thought of the old bards, as reflected in the hymns, is that of a worship of the grand and striking phenomena of nature regarded in the light of personal and conscious beings, endowed with powers beyond the control of man, yet sensible to his praises and actions. It was a natu•e-wor altip nearer than that of any other known form of polytheistic belief; a mythology comparatively little affected by those systematizing tendencies which, in other lands, led to the construction of a well-ordered pantheon and a regular organization of divine gov ernment. From the name, " the Shining Ones," given to these impersonations, it must be c neluded that the more prominent objects of early adoration were the phenomena of light. In the primitive worship of the manifold phenomena of nature. it is not so much their physical aspect that impresses the human heart as the moral and intellectual forces which are supposed to move and animate them. The attributes and relations of some of the ITedic deities. in accordance with the nature of the objectswhich they represent, partake in a high degree of this spiritual element; but it is not improbable that in an earlier phase of Aryan worship the religious conceptions were pervaded by it to a still greater extent, and that the Vedic belief, though retaining many of its primitive features, has on the whole assumed a more sensuous and anthropomorphic character. This latter element is especially predominant in the attributes and imagery applied by the Vedic poets to Indra, the god of the atmospheric region, and the favorite figure in their pan theon. While the representatives of the prominent departments of nature appear to the
Vedic hard as independent Of each other, their relations to the mortal worshiper being the chief subject of his anxiety, a simple method of classification was already resorted to at an early time, consisting of 21 triple division of the deities into gods residing in the sky, in the air. and on the earth. It is not, however, until a later stage that this attempt at a polytheistic system is followed up by the promotion of one particular god to the dignity of chief guardian for each one of these tltree regions. On the other hand, a tendency is clearly traceable in some of the hymns towards identifying gods whose functions present a certain degree of similarity of nature. These attempts seem to show a certain advance from polytheism towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence. Another feature of the old Vedic worship tended to a similar result. The great problems of the origin and existence of man and the universe had early begun to engage the Ilindu mind; and in celebrating the praises of the gods the poet was fre qucntly led by his religious and not wholly disinterested zeal to attribute to them cos inical functions of the very highest order. At a later stage of thought inquirers could not fail to perceive the inconsistency of such concessions of a. supremacy among the divine rulers, and tried to solve the problem by conceptions of an independent power, endowed with all the attributes of a supreme deity, the creator of the universe including the gods of the pantheon. The names under which this monotheistic idea is put forth are mostly of an attributive character, and some are mere epithets of particular gods, such as Prajapati, "lord of creatures," and Visrakartuan, all-doer." But to some this theory of a personal creator left many difficulties unsolved. They saw that every thing around them, including man himself, was directed by some inward agent; and it needed but one step to perceive the essential sameness of these spiritual units, and to recognize them as so many individual manifestations of one universal principle. Thus a pantheistic conception was arrived at, and put forth under such names as Paruslat, "soul," Kama, Brahman, (neuter nom. sing., bralima), "devotion, prayer." :Metaphysical and philosophical speculations were thus fast undermining the simple belief in the old gods, until, at the time of the composition of the Brahmanas and the Upethi./hads, we find them in complete possession of the minds of the theologians. While the theories crudely suggested in the later hymns are now further matured and elabo rated, the tendency towards catholicity of formula favors the combination of the con flicting monotheistic and pantheistic conception; this compromise, which makes Proja pati, the personal creator of the world, the manifestation of the impersonal Brahma, the uuiversal self-existent soul, leads to the composite pantheistic system which forms the characteristic dogma of the Brahmanical period.