"ignorant of virtue's subtilty."[78] A passage (i.
74. 27 ff.) that is reflected in Manu (viii. 85-86) says that Yama
V[=a]ivasvata takes away the sin of him with whom is satisfied "the
one that witnesses the act, that stands in the heart, that knows the
ground"; but Yama tortures him with whom this one (personified
conscience) is dissatisfied. For "truth is equal to a thousand
horse-sacrifices; truth is highest _brahma_" (_ib._ 103, 106).

Following downward the course of religious development, as reflected
in the epic, one next finds traces of Brahmanic theology not only in
the few passages where (Brahm[=a]) Praj[=a]pati remains untouched by
sectarianism, but also in the harking back to old formulae. Thus the
insistence on the Brahmanical sacredness of the number seventeen is
preserved (xii. 269. 26; iii. 210. 20, etc); and Upanishadic is the
"food is Praj[=a]pati" of iii. 200. 38 (Yama in 40). There is an
interesting rehabilitation of the primitive idea of the Acvins in the
new ascription of formal divinity to the (personified) Twilights
(Sandhy[=a]) in iii. 200. 83, although this whole passage is more
Puranic than epic. From the same source is the doctrine that the fruit
of action expires at the end of one hundred thousand _kalpas_ (_ib._
vs. 121). One of the oddest religious freaks in the epic is the sudden
exaltation of the Ribhus, the Vedic (season-gods) artisans, to the
position of highest gods. In that heaven of Brahm[=a], which is above
the Vedic gods' heaven, there are the holy seers and the Ribhus, 'the
divinities of the gods'; who do not change with the change of _kalpas_
(as do other Vedic gods), III. 261. 19-23. One might almost imagine
that their threefoldness was causative of a trinitarian identification
with a supreme triad; but no, for still higher is the 'heaven of
Vishnu' (vs. 37). The contrast is marked between this and _[=A]it.
Br._ III. 30, where the Ribhus with some difficulty obtain the right
to drink _soma_.

There is an aspect of the epic religion upon which it is necessary to
touch before treating of the sectarian development. In the early
philosophical period wise priests meet together to discuss theological
and philosophical questions, often aided, and often brought to grief,
by the wit of women disputants, who are freely admitted to hear and
share in the discussion. When, however, pantheism, nay, even
Vishnuism, or still more, Krishnaism, was an accepted fact upon what,
then, was the wi