ritual,[13] which overpowered the
Brahmanic rite. Then, again, behind the geographical advance of
Brahmanism[14] lay a people more and more prone to diverge from the
true cult (from the Brahmanic point of view). In the latter part of
the great Br[=a]hmana[15] there is already a distrust of the Indus
tribes, which marks the breaking up of Aryan unity; not that breaking
up into political division which is seen even in the Rig Veda, where
Aryan fights against Aryan as well as against the barbarian, but the
more serious dismemberment caused by the hates of priests, for here
there was no reconciliation.

The cynical scepticism of the Brahmanic ritualists, as well as the
divergence of opinions in regard to this or that sacrificial
pettiness, shows that even where there was overt union there was
covert discord, the disagreement of schools, and the difference of
faith. But all this does but reflect the greater difference in
speculation and theology which was forming above the heads of the
ritualistic bigots. For it is not without reason that the Upanishads
are more or less awkwardly laid in as the top-stone on the liturgical
edifice. They belong to the time but they are of it only in part. Yet
to dissociate the mass of Brahmanic priestlings from the Upanishad
thinkers, as if the latter were altogether members of a new era, would
be to lose the true historical perspective. The vigor of protest
against the received belief continues from the Rig Veda to Buddha,
from Buddha till to-day.

The Vedic cult absorbed a good deal of Hinduism, for instance the
worship of Fate,[16] just as Hinduism absorbed a good deal of Vedic
cult. Nor were the popular works obnoxious to the priest. In the
Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad[17] the Itih[=a]sas and Pur[=a]nas
(fore-runners of the epic) are already reckoned as a fifth Veda, being
recognized as a Veda almost as soon as was the Atharvan,[18] which
even in Manu is still called merely 'texts of Atharvan and Angiras'
(where texts of Bhrigu might as well have been added). Just as the
latter work is formally recognized, and the use of its magical
formulas, if employed for a good purpose, is enjoined in epic[19] and
law (_e.g._ Manu, xi. 33), so the Hinduistic rites crept gradually
into the foreground, pushing back the _soma_-cult. Idols are formally
recognized as venerable by the law-makers;[20] even before their day
the 'holy pool,' which we have shown to be so important to Hinduism,
is accepted by Brahm