a land of such multiform theology it would be hazardous to say that
Monotheism has always arisen out of Pantheism, but in the speculative
schools where the Upanishads were composed, this was often its genesis.
The older idea is that a subtle essence pervades all nature and the
deities who rule nature: this is spiritualized into the doctrine of
Brahman attributed to Yajnavalkya and it is only by a secondary process
that this Brahman is personified and sometimes identified with a
particular god such as Siva. The doctrine of the personal Isvara is
elaborated in the Svetasvatara Upanishad of uncertain date[198]. It
celebrates him in hymns of almost Mohammedan monotheism. "Let us know
that great Lord of Lords, the highest God of Gods, the Master of
Masters, the highest above, as God, as Lord of the world, who is to be
glorified[199]." But this monotheistic fervour does not last long
without relapsing into the familiar pantheistic strain. "Thou art
woman," says the same Upanishad[200], "and Thou art man: Thou art youth
and maiden: Thou as an old man totterest along on thy staff: Thou art
born with thy face turned everywhere. Thou art the dark-blue bee: Thou
the green parrot with the red eyes. Thou art the thunder cloud, the
seasons and the seas. Thou art without beginning because Thou art
infinite, Thou, from whom all worlds are born."

CHAPTER VI

RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA

In reading the Brahmanas and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more
of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men
have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their
times. Thought was their real life: of that they have given a full
record, imperfect only in chronology, for though their speculations are
often set forth in a narrative form, we hear surprisingly little about
contemporary events.

The territory familiar to these works is the western part of the modern
United Provinces with the neighbouring districts of the Panjab, the
lands of the Kurus, Pancalas, and Matsyas, all in the region of Agra and
Delhi, and further east Kasi (Benares) with Videha or Tirhut. Gandhara
was known[201] but Magadha and Bengal are not mentioned. Even in the
Buddha's lifetime they were still imperfectly brahmanized.

What we know of the period 800 to 600 B.C. is mostly due to the
Brahmans, and many Indianists have accepted their view, that they were
then socially the highest class and the repository