, continues till it loses itself in a multiplication of
sectarian dogmas, where the All becomes the god that has been elected
by one communion of devotees.[2]

The external characteristics of Upanishad thought are those of a
religion that has replaced formal acts by formal introspection. The
Yogin devotee, who by mystic communion desires absorption into the
world-spirit, replaces the Sanny[=a]sin and Yati ascetics, who would
accomplish the same end by renunciation and severe self-mortification.
This is a fresh figure on the stage of thought, where before were mad
Munis, beggars, and miracle-mongers. On this stage stands beside the
ascetic the theoretical theosophist who has succeeded in identifying
himself, soberly, not in frenzy, with God.[3] What were the practical
results of this teaching has been indicated in part already. The
futility of the stereotyped religious offices was recognized. But
these offices could not be discarded by the orthodox. With the lame
and illogical excuse that they were useful as discipline, though
unessential in reality, they were retained by the Brahman priest. Not
so by the Jain; still less so by the Buddhist.

In the era in which arose the public revolt against the dogmatic
teaching of the Brahman there were more sects than one that have now
passed away forgotten. The eastern part of India, to which appertain
the later part of the Catapatha Br[=a]hmana and the schismatic
heresies, was full of religious and philosophical controversy. The
great heretics were not innovators in heresy. The Brahmans permitted,
encouraged, and shared in theoretical controversy. There was nothing
in the tenets of Jainism or of Buddhism that from a philosophical
point of view need have caused a rupture with the Brahmans.

But the heresies, nevertheless, do not represent the priestly caste,
so much as the caste most apt to rival and to disregard the claim of
the Brahman, viz., the warrior-caste. They were supported by kings,
who gladly stood against priests. To a great extent both Jainism and
Buddhism owed their success (amid other rival heresies with no less
claim to good protestantism) to the politics of the day. The kings of
the East were impatient of the Western church; they were pleased to
throw it over. The leaders in the 'reformation' were the younger sons
of noble blood. The church received many of these younger sons as
priests. Both Buddha and Mah[=a]v[=i]ra were, in fact, revolting
adherents of the Br