ws in
their later period so it happened here;--the sanctity of the text was
extended to the commentary, the brahmana also was held to be
god-given and inspired, and by some was even more highly esteemed
than the hymns themselves. A third class of inspired writings
consists of the Upanishads, or speculative treatises, of which we
shall speak later. The "Veda" in the larger sense is made up of these
three bodies of compositions, mantras, brahmanas, and upanishads.
These three belong to revelation or "S'ruti," _i.e._ hearing; what is
contained in these is to be regarded as having been heard by inspired
men from a higher source. The counterpart of S'ruti is "smriti,"
_i.e._ recollection, tradition. This embraces the Sutras or works
dealing with ceremonial in the way of short rules gathered from the
older literature, with the exposition of the Vedas, with domestic
rites and conventional usages. The law books, the epics, and the
Puranas, or ancient legendary histories, also belong to this class.

The doctrine of the Vedas, of their sacredness and of their virtues,
played a great part in Indian thought. They were revered not as a
written word, for they were not written but handed down by
memory,--the Brahman still knows his sacred literature by heart,--but
as hymns possessing supernatural powers and of far higher than human
origin. They were raised to the rank of a divinity, they were said to
have had to do with the creation of the world, or to have been among
the first created beings. The value of the study of them was not to
be exaggerated; he who engages in it, we hear, offers a complete
sacrifice, obtains for himself the world which does not pass away,
and becomes united with Brahma. The class of men who had installed
themselves as the authorised interpreters of the hymns, had evidently
taken up a very strong position.

2. Sacrifice.--Indian ritual is an immense subject. In the Vedic
period there were several orders of sacrifice--the hymns of the
Rigveda have to do with the Soma-sacrifice alone--and several kinds
of priests, and it stands to reason that an elaborate ritual derived
from a distant age and cherished by a priestly caste which was
growing in power, could not quickly change. In spite of the
considerable amount of materials accessible in the Brahmanas and
Sutras, a history of Indian sacrifice as a whole has still to be
written.

It is characteristic of early Indian sacrifice that it is not
confined to a temp