h he has no further need of either
mortifications or religious observances; but "with the sacrificial fires
reposited in his mind," he may devote the remainder of his days to
meditating on the divinity. Taking up his abode at the foot of a tree in
total solitude, "with no companion but his own soul," clad in a coarse
garment, he should carefully avoid injuring any creature or giving
offence to any human being that may happen to come near him. Once a day,
in the evening, "when the charcoal fire is extinguished and the smoke no
longer issues from the fire-places, when the pestle is at rest, when the
people have taken their meals and the dishes are removed," he should go
near the habitations of men, in order to beg what little food may
suffice to sustain his feeble frame. Ever pure of mind he should thus
bide his time, "as a servant expects his wages," wishing neither for
death nor for life, until at last his soul is freed from its fetters and
absorbed in the eternal spirit, the impersonal self-existent Brahma.

The tendency towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence
had resulted in some minds, as has been remarked before, in a kind of
monotheistic notion of the origin of the universe. In the literature of
the Brahmana period we meet with this conception as a common element of
speculation; and so far from its being considered incompatible with the
existence of a universal spirit, _Prajapati_, the personal creator of
the world, is generally allowed a prominent place in the pantheistic
theories. Yet the state of theological speculation, reflected in these
writings, is one of transition. The general drift of thought is
essentially pantheistic, but it is far from being reduced to a regular
system, and the ancient form of belief still enters largely into it. The
attributes of Prajapati, in the same way, have in them elements of a
purely polytheistic nature, and some of the attempts at reconciling this
new-fangled deity with the traditional belief are somewhat awkward. An
ancient classification of the gods represented them as being
thirty-three in number, eleven in each of the three worlds or regions
of nature. These regions being associated each with the name of one
principal deity, this division gave rise at a later time to the notion
of a kind of triple divine government, consisting of _Agni_ (fire),
_Indra_ sky) or _Vayu_ (wind), and _Surya_ (sun), as presiding
respectively over the gods on earth, in the atmos