themselves to a monarchical form of
pantheon; no one of them was sufficiently marked out from the rest or
above the rest, to rule permanently over them. Yet the sense of unity
in Indian religion is very strong; from the first the Indian mind is
seeking a way to adjust the claims of the various gods, and view them
all as one. An early idea which makes in this direction is that of
Rita, the order, not specially connected with any one god, which
rules both in the physical and the moral world, and with which all
beings have to reckon. Philosophy is busy from the first with the
Vedic gods; the impulse to good conduct and that to mysticism are
equally innate in this religion. We can see, even in the Rigveda,
that India is to solve the problem of its many gods not in the way of
Monotheism, by making one god rule over the others, but in the way of
Pantheism, by making all the gods modes or manifestations of one
being. "Agni is all the Gods" we read here. And a religion which
arranges its objects of worship in this way will not be a religion of
action, but of speculation and of resignation.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

_S. B. E._ vol. xxxii. Vedic Hymns. xlvi. Hymns to Agni.

Muir's _Sanscrit Texts_.

M. Mueller's _Hibbert Lectures_.

Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom; Hinduism_ in "Non-Christian
Religious Systems" (S.P.C.K.).

Kaegi, _The Rigveda, the oldest literature of the Indians_, 1886.

Barth, _The Religions of India_, in Truebner's Oriental Series.

Herrmann Oldenberg, _Die Religion der Veda_, 1894.

Bergaigne, _La Religion Vedique_, 3 vols., 1878-83.

E. Hardy, _Die Vedisch Brahmanische Periode der Religion des alten
Indiens_.

Lehmann, in De la Saussaye.

Rhys Davids, _Oxford Proceedings_, vol. i. p. 1, _sqq._

CHAPTER XIX
INDIA

II. _Brahmanism_

The period in which the songs were collected by the Aryans dwelling
in the Punjaub was succeeded by a period of wars and troubles, after
which the successful race is found to have spread further towards the
East, and to have settled on the Ganges and its tributaries. Along
with this change of position a great change has also taken place in
the spirit of the people, a change which is strikingly seen in their
religion. The priesthood has come to occupy the position of a
separate class to an extent not formerly the case, and all the
phenomena are apparent which are generally found associated with a
hierocracy or rule of priests. The early religious writings