nted this calm rustic world from
becoming stagnant. Though roads were few and dangerous, a habit of
travel was conspicuous among the religious and intellectual classes. The
Indian is by nature a pilgrim rather than a stationary monk, and we
often hear of Brahmans travelling in quest of knowledge alone or in
companies, and stopping in rest houses[216]. In the Satapatha
Brahmana[217], Uddalaka Aruni is represented as driving about and
offering a piece of gold as a prize to those who could defeat him in
argument. Great sacrifices were often made the occasion of these
discussions. We must not think of them as mere religious ceremonies, as
a sort of high mass extending over several days. The fact that they
lasted so long and involved operations like building sheds and altars
made them unlike our church services and gave opportunities for debate
and criticism of what was done. Such competition and publicity were good
for the wits. The man who cut the best figure in argument was in
greatest demand as a sacrificer and obtained the highest fees. But these
stories of prizes and fees emphasize a feature which has characterized
the Brahmans from Vedic times to the present day, namely, their
shameless love of money. The severest critic cannot deny them a
disinterested taste for intellectual, religious and spiritual things,
but their own books often use language which shows them as professional
men merely anxious to make a fortune by the altar. "The sacrifice is
twofold," says the Satapatha Brahmana, "oblations to the gods and gifts
to the priests. With oblations men gratify the gods and with gifts the
human gods. These two kinds of gods when gratified convey the worshipper
to the heavenly world[218]." Without a fee the sacrifice is as dead as
the victim. It is the fee which makes it living and successful[219].

Tradition has preserved the names of many of these acute, argumentative,
fee-loving priests, but of few can we form any clear picture. The most
distinguished is Yajnavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths
and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a
personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many
remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend
indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as
has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone
of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was
apparent