are beginning to fade away in
their eyes, and in their mind is arising the conception of a single
universal Godhead.

CHAPTER II

THE AGE OF THE BRAHMANAS AND UPANISHADS

Centuries have passed since the hymns of the Rig-veda were composed.
The Aryans have now crossed the fateful ridge on the east of their
former settlements, and have spread themselves over the lands of
Northern Hindostan around the upper basins of the Ganges and Jamna,
reaching eastward as far as Bihar and southward down to the Vindhya
Mountains, and in the course of their growth they have absorbed not a
little of the blood of the dark-skinned natives. The old organisation
of society by tribes has come to an end, though the names of many
ancient tribes are still heard; the Aryans are now divided laterally
by the principle of what we call "caste," which is based upon a
combination of religious and professional distinctions, and vertically
by the rule of kings, while a few oligarchic governments still survive
to remind them of Vedic days. In these kingdoms the old tribes are
beginning to be fused together; from these combinations new States are
arising, warring with one another, constantly waxing and waning.
Society is ruled politically by kings, spiritually by Brahmans. With
the rise of the kingdom an Established Church has come into existence,
and the Brahman priesthood works out its principles to the bitterest
end of logic.

The Brahmans are now, more than they ever were before, a close
corporation of race, religion, and profession, a religious fraternity
in the strict sense of the words. While other classes of the Aryans
have mixed their blood to a greater or less degree with that of the
natives, the Brahmans have preserved much of the pure Aryan strain.
They, moreover, have maintained the knowledge of the ancient Vedic
language in which the sacred hymns of their forefathers were composed,
of the traditions associated with them, and of the priestly lore of
Vedic ritual. Proud of this heritage and resolved to maintain it
undiminished, they have knitted themselves into a close spiritual and
intellectual aristocracy, which stands fast like a lighthouse amidst
the darkness and storms of political changes. They employ all the arts
of the priest, the thinker, the statesman, and even the magician to
preserve their primacy; and around them the manifold variety of the
other castes, in all their divisions and subdivisions, groups itself
to make u