BRAHMANISM PROPER. The development from the older into the newer, from the elemental and natural into the artificial, ritualistic and philosophic, or from the early Rig-Veda stage of religion into Brahmanism, may be traced through the Yajur-Veda, or book of knowledge of the sacrifice and the ritual. The priestly power of the Brahmans is supreme in this sacred hook, and in the Yajur-Veda may be seen the begin nings of Brahmanism, as shown in its fuller de velopment in the branch Brahmayas (see VEDA) and in the philorphical writings termed Upan ishad. (See UPANISHAD.) In the Brubnimies a word of the neuter gender, and not to be con founded with the similar word in the masculine gender. denoting the first Hindu caste—the mysti cal allegories which now and then appear in what we have palled the second class of Vedic hymns, are not only developed to a considerable extent, hut gradually brought into a systematic form. Epithets given by the Rig-Veda poets to the ele mentary gods are made the bases of legends. as suming the shape of historical narratives. The simple and primitive worship mentioned in the hymns highly complex and A ponderous ritual. founded on those legends, and supported by a far more advanced condi tion of society, is hronght into a regular system. which requires a special class of priests to keep it in a proper working order. Some of the Vedic hymns seem to belong already to the be ginning of this period of the Brahmana wor ship, for in the second book of the Rig-Veda several such priests are enumerated in reference to the adoration of Agni. the god of fire; but the full contingent of sixteen priests. such as is required for the celebration of a great sacrifice, does not make its appearance before the composi tion of the Brahmanas and later Vedas. Yet, however wild many of these legends are. how ever distant they become from the earlier veneration of the elementary powers of nature. and however much this ritual betrays the grad ual development of the institution of castes— unknown to the hymns of the Rig-Veda—there are still two features in them. which mark a progress of the religious mind of ancient India. While the poets of the Rig-Veda are chiefly con eerned in glorifying the visible manifestations of the elementary gods, in the Brahmanas their ethical qualities are put forward for imitation and praise. Truth and untruth, right and wrong —in the moral sense which these word, imply— are not seldom emphasized in the description of the battles fought between gods and demons; and several rites themselves are described as symbolical representations of these and similar qualities of the good and evil being,. worshiped or abhorred. A second feature is the tendency, in these Brahmanas, to determine the rank of the gods, and. as a •on•equence. to give promi
nence to one special god among the rest; where as in the old Vedic poetry, though we may discover a predilection of the poets to bestow more praise, for instance. on lndra and Agni than on other gods. yet we find no intention. 011 their part, to raise any of them to a supreme rank. Thus. in some Brahmanas, Indra, the god of the firmament, is endowed with the dignity of a ruler of the gods: in others, the sun receives the attributes of superiority. This is no real solution of the momentous problem hinted at in the Vedic hymns, lint it is a semblance of it. There the poet asks 'whence this varied world arose'—here the priest answers that 'one god is more elevated than the rest ;' and he is satis fied with regulating the detail of the soma and animal sacrifice, according to the rank which he assigns to his deities.
A real answer to this great question is at tempted, however. by the theologians who ex plained the 'mysterious doctrine,' held in tho utmost reverence by all Hindus. and laid down in the writings known under the name of Upa nishad (q.v.). It must suffice here to state that the object of these important works is to explain, not only the process of creation, but the nature of a supreme being, and its relation to the human soul. In the Upanishads, An Indra, Vayu, and the other deities of the Vedie hymns become symbols to assist the mind in its attempt to understand the true nature of the one absolute being. and the manner in which this being mani fests itself in its worldly form. The human soul itself is of the same nature as this supreme or great soul; its ultimate destination is reunion with the supreme soul, and the means of attain ing that end is not the performance of sacri ficial] rites, but the comprehension of its own self and of the great soul. The doetrine which at a later period became the foundation of the creed of the eduented—the doctrine that the supreme soul, or (the neuters Brahman, is the only reality. and that the world has a claim to be noticed only in so far as it emanated from this hieing. is already clearly laid down in these though the language in which it is expressed still adapts itself to the legendary and allegorical style which characterizes the Brah maim portion of the Vedas. The Upanishads became thus the basis of the enlightened faith of India. They are not a system of philosophy, but they contain all the germs whence the three great systems of Ilindu philosophy and like the latter, while revealing the struggRt of the Hindu mind to comprehend the one supreme being. they advance sufficiently far to express their belief in such a being. but at the same time acknowledge the inability of the human mind to understand its essence.