The state of religious thought among the ancient bards, as reflected in the hymns of the Rigveda, is that of a worship of the grand and striking phenomena of nature regarded in the light of personal conscious beings, endowed with a power beyond the control of man, though not insensible to his praises and actions. It is a nature-worship purer than that met with in any other polytheistic form of belief w e are acquainted with,—a mythology still comparatively little affected by those systematizing tendencies which, in a less simple and primitive state of thought, lead to the construction of a well-ordered pantheon and a regular organization of divine government. To the mind of the early Vedic worshipper the various departments of the surrounding nature are not as yet clearly defined, and the functions which he assigns to their divine representatives continually flow into one another. Nor has he yet learned to care to determine the relative worth and position of the objects of his adoration; but the temporary influence of the phenomenon to which he addresses his praises bears too strongly upon his mind to allow him for the time to consider the claims of rival powers to which at other times he is wont to look up with equal feelings of awe and reverence. It is this immediateness of impulse under which the human mind in its infancy strives to give utterance to its emotions that imparts to many of its outpourings the ring of monotheistic fervour.

The generic name given to these impersonations, viz., deva (“ the shining ones ”), points to the conclusion, sufficiently justified by the nature of the more prominent objects of Vedic adoration as well as by common natural occurrences, that it was the beautiful phenomena of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind. In the primitive worship of the manifold phenomena of nature it is not, of course, so much their physical aspect that impresses the human heart as the moral and intellectual forces w , hich are supposed to move and animate them. The attributes and relations of some of the Vedic deities, in accordance with the nature of the objects 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 and more general extent, and that the Vedic belief, though retaining many of the 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, the favourite figure in their pantheon. While the representatives of the prominent departments of nature appear to the Vedic bard as consisting in a state of independence of . one another, their relation to the mortal worshipper being the chief subject of his anxiety, a simple method of classification was already resorted to at an early time, consisting in a triple division of the deities into gods residing in the sky, in the air, and on earth. It is not, however, until a later stage,—the first clear indication being conveyed in a passage of the tenth book of the Rigveda, 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 of these three 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 would seem to show a certain advance of religious reflection, the first steps from polytheism towards a comprehension of the unity of 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 universe had early begun to engage the Hindü mind; and in celebrating the praises of the gods the poet was frequently led by his religious, and not wholly disinterested, zeal to attribute to them cosmical functions of the very highest order. At a later stage of thought, chiefly exhibited in the tenth book of the Rigveda and the Atharvaveda, inquiring sages could not but 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 indeed some of them, such as Prajäpati (“lord of creatures ”), Visυakarman (“ all-doer ”), occur in the earlier hymns as mere epithets of particular gods. But to other minds this theory of a personal creator left many difficulties unsolved. They saw, as the poets of old had seen, that everything around them, that 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 their being but so many individual manifestations of one universal principle. Thus a pantheistic conception was arrived at, put forth under various names, such as Purυsha (“soul”), Käma (“desire”), Brahman (neutr.; nom. sing, brahma) ( “devotion, prayer”). Metaphysical and theosophic speculations were thus fast undermining the simple belief in the old gods, until, at the time of the composition of the Brâhmanas and Upanishads, we find them in complete possession of the minds of the theologians. Whilst the theories crudely suggested in the later hymns are now further matured and elaborated, the tendency towards catholicity of formula favours the combination of the conflicting monotheistic and pantheistic conceptions; this compromise, which makes Präjapati, the personal creator of the world, the manifestation of the impersonal Brcιhma, the universal self-existent soul, leads to the composite pantheistic system which forms the characteristic dogma of the Brähmanical period.

The spirit of Vedic worship is pervaded by a strong belief in the efficacy of invocation and sacrificial offering. The earnest and well-expressed prayer cannot fail to draw the divine power to the worshipper and make it yield to his supplication; and offerings, so far from being mere acts of devotion which give pleasure to the god, represent the very food and drink which render him vigorous and capable of battling with the enemies of his mortal friend. This intrinsic power of invocation found an early expression in the term brdhma (neuter)(“religious devotion, prayer, hymn”); and its independent existence as an active moral principle in shaping the destinies of man became recognized in the Vedic pantheon in the conception of a god, Brihaspati or Brahmanaspati (“lord of prayer ”), the guardian of the pious worshipper. This feature in the Hindu belief could scarcely fail early to engender and foster in the minds of the people feelings of esteem and reverence towards those who possessed the inspired gift of poetical expression, as well as those who had acquired an intimate knowledge of the various forms of ritual worship. The common term used in the Veda for the officiating priest is brahman (masc.; nom. sing, brahma), originally denoting, it would seem, “one who prays, a worshipper/’ or “the composer or reciter of a hymn (brdhman, n.)” In some passages the word also signifies a special class of priests who officiated as superintendents during sacrificial ceremonies, the complicated naturo of which required the co-operation of several priests. It is probable that in most cases the function of the poet or composer of hymns was combined with that of a minister of worship. In the Vedic hymns two classes of society, the royal (or military) and the priestly classes, were evidently recognized as being raised above the level of the Vis', or bulk of the Aryan community. These social grades seem to have been in existence even before the separation of the two Asiatic branches of the Indo-European race, the Aryans of Iran and India. It is true that, although the Athrava, Rathaëstâo, and Vattrya of the Zend Avesta correspond in position and occupation to the Brähman, Räjan, and Fïs' of the Veda, there is no similarity of names between them; but this fact only shows that the common vocabulary had not yet definitely fixed on any specific names for these classes. Even in the Veda their nomenclature is by no means limited to a single designation for each of them. Moreover, Atharvan occurs not infrequently in the hymns as the personification of the priestly profession, as the proto-priest who is supposed to have obtained fire from heaven and to have instituted the rite of sacrifice; and although ratheshtha (j i standing on a car”) is not actually found in connection with the Räjan or Kshatriya, its synonym rathin is in later literature a not unusual epithet of men of the military caste. At the time of the hymns, aud even during the common IndoPersian period, the sacrificial ceremonial had already become sufficiently complicated to call for the creation of a certain number of distinct priestly offices with special duties attached to them. While this shows clearly that the position and occupation of the priest were those of a profession, the fact that the terms brähmana and brahmaputra, both denoting “the son of a brahman,” are used in certain hymns as synonyms of Brahman, seems to justify the assumption that the profession had already, to a certain degree, become hereditary at the time when these hymns were composed. There is, however, with the exception of a solitary passage in a hymn of the last book, no trace to be found in the Rigυeda of that rigid division into four castes separated from one another by unsurmountable barriers, which in later times constitutes the distinctive feature of Hindü society The idea of caste is expressed by the Sanskrit term varna, originally denoting “colour,” thereby implying differences of complexion between the several classes. The word occurs in the Veda in the latter sense, but it is used there to mark the distinction, not between the three classes of the Aryan community, but between them on the one hand and a dark-coloured hostile people on the other. The latter, called Däsas or Däsyus, consisted, no doubt, of the indigenous tribes, with whom the Aryans had to carry on a continual struggle for the possession of the land. The partial subjection of these comparatively uncivilized tribes, as the rule of the superior race was gradually spreading eastward, and their submission to a state of serfdom under the name of èüdras, added to the Aryan community an element, totally separated from it by colour, by habits, by language, and by occupation. Moreover, the religious belief of these tribes being entirely different from that of the conquering people, the pious Aryas, and especially the class habitually engaged in acts of worship, could hardly fail to apprehend considerable danger to the purity of their own faith from too close and intimate a contact between the two races. What more natural, therefore, than that measures should have been early devised to limit the intercourse between them within as narrow bounds as possible. In course of time the difference of vocation, and the greater or less exposure to the scorching influence of the tropical sky, added, no doubt, to a certain admixture of Sfidra blood, especially in the case of the common people, seem to have produced also in the Aryan population different shades of complexion, which greatly favoured a tendency to rigid class-restrictions originally awakened and continually fed by the lot of the servile race. Meanwhile the power of the sacerdotal order having been gradually enlarged in proportion to the development of the minutiae of sacrificial ceremonial and the increase of sacred lore, they began to lay claim to supreme authority in regulating and controlling the religious and social life of the people. The author of the so-called Purusha-sükta, or hymn to Purusha, above referred to, represents the four castes— the Brähmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaiéyars, and Südras — as having severally sprung from the mouth, the arms, the thighs, and the feet of Purusha, a primary being, here assumed to be the source of the universe. It is very doubtful, however, whether at the time when this hymn was composed the relative position of the two upper castes could already have been settled in so decided a way as this theory might lead us to suppose. There is, on the contrary, reason to believe that some time had yet to elapse, marked by fierce and bloody struggles for supremacy, of which only imperfect ideas can be formed from the legendary and biassed accounts of later generations, before the Kshatriyas finally submitted to the full measure of priestly pretension.

The definitive establishment of theBrähmanical hierarchy marks the beginning of the Brähmanical period properly so called. Though the origin and gradual rise of some of the leading institutions of this era can, as has been shown, be traced in the earlier writings, the chain of their development presents a break at this juncture which no satisfactory materials enable us to fill up. A considerable portion of the literature of this time has apparently been lost; and several important works, the original composition of which has probably to be assigned to the early days of Brahmanism, such as the institutes of Manu and the two great epics, the Mahabharata and Rämäyana, in the form in which they have been handed down to us, show manifest traces cf a more modern redaction. Yet it is sufficiently clear from internal evidence that Manu’s Code of Laws, though it is merely a metrical rifacimento of older materials, reproduces on the whole pretty faithfully the state of Hindu society depicted in the sources from which it was compiled. The final overthrow of the Kshatriya power was followed by a period of jealous legislation on the part of the Brahmans. For the time their chief aim was to improve their newly gained vantage-ground by surrounding everything oonnected with their order with a halo of sanctity calculated to impress the lay community with feelings of awe. In the Brähmanas and even in the Purusha Hymn, and the Atharvan, divine origin had already been ascribed to the Vedic Sanhitäs, especially to the three older collections. The same privilege was now successfully claimed for the later Vedic literature, so imbued with Brâhmanic aspirations and pretensions; and the authority implied in the designation of Sruti or revelation removed henceforth the whole body of sacred w ritings from the sphere of doubt and criticism. This concession necessarily involved an acknowledgement of the new social order as a divine institution. Its stability was, however, rendered still more secure by the elaboration of a system of conventional precepts, partly forming the basis of Manu’s Code, which clearly defined the relative position and the duties of the several castes, and determined the penalties to be inflicted on any transgressions of the limits assigned to each of them. These laws are conceived with no humane or sentimental scruples on the part of their authors. On the contrary, the offences committed by Brahmans against other castes are treated with remarkable clemency, whilst the punishments inflicted for trespasses on the rights of higher classes are the more severe and inhuman the lower the offender stands in the social scale. The three first castes, however unequal to each other in privilege and social standing, are yet united by a common bond of sacramental rites (sanskäras), traditionally connected from ancient times with certain incidents and stages in the life of the Aryan Hindü, as conception, birth, name-giving, the first taking out of the child to see the sun, the first feeding with boiled rice, the rites of tonsure and hair cutting, the youth’s investiture with the sacrificial thread, and his return home on completing his studies, marriage, funeral, <fcc. The modes of observing these family rites are laid down in a class of writings called Grihya-sûtras, or domestic rules. The most important of these observances is the upanayana, or rite of conducting the boy to a spiritual teacher. Connected with this act is the investiture with the sacred cord, ordinarily worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm, and varying in material according to the class of the wearer. This ceremony being the preliminary act to the youth’s initiation into the study of the Veda, the management of the consecrated fire and the knowledge of the rites of purification, including the savitri, a solemn invocation to savitri, the sun, which has to be repeated every morning and evening before the rise and after the setting of that luminary, issupposed to constitute the second or spiritual birth of the Arya. It is from their participation in this rite that the three upper classes are called the twice-born. The ceremony is enjoined to take place some time between the eighth and sixteenth year of age in the case of a Brahman, between the eleventh and twenty-second year of a Kshatriya, and between the twelfth and twenty-fourth year of a Vaisya. He who has not been invested with the mark of his class within this time is for ever excluded from uttering the sacred savitri and becomes an outcast, unless he is absolved from his sin by a council of Brahmans, and after due performance of a purificatory rite resumes the badge of his caste. With one not duly initiated no righteous man is allowed to associate or to enter into connections of affinity. The duty of the Sûdra is to serve the twice-born classes, and above all the Brahmans. He is excluded from all sacred knowledge, and if he performs sacrificial ceremonies he must do so...