as the down-trodden serfs. When
the Brahmans had established their power, they made a wise use of it.
From the ancient Vedic times they recognized that if they were to
exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. In
arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal
office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the
counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the
duty of the Sudra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and
follow middle-class trades or crafts; so the business of the Kchatryas
was to fight the public enemy, and of the Brahman to propitiate the
national gods.

Each day brought to the Brahmans its routine of ceremonies, studies, and
duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearly defined stages
of discipline. For their existence, in its full religious significance,
commenced not at birth, but on being invested at the close of childhood
with the sacred thread of the Twice-born. Their youth and early manhood
were to be entirely spent in learning the Veda by heart from an older
Brahman, tending the sacred fire, and serving their preceptor. Having
completed his long studies, the young Brahman entered on the second
stage of his life, as a householder. He married, and commenced a course
of family duties. When he had reared a family, and gained a practical
knowledge of the world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the
third period of his life; feeding on roots or fruits, practising his
religious duties with increased devotion. The fourth stage was that of
the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from earthly
affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of
the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final
absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his
life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more
than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find
entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a
Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large
extent practically carried out. Throughout his whole existence the true
Brahman practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple
diet, curbing the desires; shut off from the tumults of war, as his
business was to pray, not to fight, and having his thoughts ever fixed
on study and contemplation. "Wha