who must have constituted the great majority of the
population. Also there are signs that priests and nobles, however much
they quarrelled, combined to keep the lower castes in subjection[236].
Yet we can hardly doubt that then as now all classes were profoundly
religious, and that just as to-day village deities unknown to the Vedas,
or even to the Puranas, receive the worship of millions, so then there
were gods and rites that did not lack popular attention though unnoticed
in the scriptures of Brahmans and Buddhists.

We know little of this popular religion by direct description before or
even during the Buddhist period, but we have fragmentary indications of
its character. Firstly several incongruous observances have obtruded
themselves into the Brahmanic ritual. Thus in the course of the
Mahavrata ceremony[237] the Hotri priest sits in a swing and maidens,
carrying pitchers of water on their heads and singing, dance round an
altar while drums are beaten. Parallels to this may be found to-day. The
image of Krishna, or even a priest who represents Krishna, is swung to
and fro in many temples, the use of drums in worship is distressingly
common, and during the Pongol festivities in southern India young people
dance round or leap over a fire. Other remarkable features in the
Mahavrata are the shooting of arrows into a target of skin, the use of
obscene language (such as is still used at the Holi festival) and even
obscene acts[238]. We must not assume that popular religion in ancient
India was specially indecent, but it probably included ceremonies
analogous to the Lupercalia and Thesmophoria, in which licence in words
and deeds was supposed to promote fertility and prosperity.

We are also justified in supposing that offerings to ancestors and many
ceremonies mentioned in the Grihya-sutras or handbooks of domestic
ritual were performed by far larger classes of the population than the
greater sacrifices, but we have no safe criteria for distinguishing
between priestly injunctions and the real practice of ancient times.

Secondly, in the spells and charms of the Atharva[239], which received
the Brahmanic imprimatur later than the other three Vedas, we find an
outlook differing from that of the other Vedas and resembling the
popular religion of China. Mankind are persecuted by a host of evil
spirits and protect themselves by charms addressed directly to their
tormentors or by invoking the aid of beneficent powers. All na