all the classes.

[Footnote 1: Compare Hans Sachs, _Die Ungleichen Kinder Eva's_.]

If the highest caste is strictly defined, so also are the others. The
second caste is that of the Kshatriyas, warriors or rulers, the third
that of the Vaisyas or farmers. These three have rank, they are the
twice-born classes (their second birth answers to confirmation, and
takes place when a young man is invested with the sacred thread). The
Sudras are the fourth and lowest class; no duty is assigned to them
in the law books but that of serving meekly the other castes. It has
been thought that the Sudras represent the conquered aborigines, the
three classes of rank belonging to the Aryan invaders, but this is
open to question.

The student of religion has to fix his attention on the Brahmans, who
have secured themselves in the position of the leading caste. We
speak first of the literary movement in which they were concerned,
then of the sacrifices they conducted, and of their gods. We shall
then say something of the practical operation of their religion as a
rule of life, and lastly we shall come to the speculative work of
their period, which is not, however, to be set down to them alone.

1. The Growth of the Sacred Literature.--The Vedas rose in sacredness
after the age which produced them passed away. A few centuries after
they were written they were not generally intelligible; they needed
interpretation, but at the same time the doctrine of their
inspiration rose higher and higher. The brahmans had both to
interpret the words of the old hymns and to explain how, when used at
the sacrifice, they produced the effect ascribed to them. This led to
the production of the earliest Indian prose, the brahmanas or ritual
treatises. Primarily intended to be directories of worship for the
priests, these works were enriched with all sorts of ideas about the
sacrifices, their origin, and their effects; points in the ritual are
explained in them by mythological stories which we should not
otherwise know, and we see from them that many superstitions, to
which the Vedas gave no encouragement, yet lived among the people.
Each Samhita, or collection of hymns, had its Brahmana, and some of
the collections had several. These works, though transcending in
dreariness most directories of worship, are yet of great value for
the light they throw on the history of Indian manners and ideas, as
well as on that of mythology. And as it happened among the Je