little unless we separate ourselves from our
preconceptions about 'primitive Aryans'; whose civilization may
have been at once highly evolved and very spiritual.

The _Brahmanas_ are priest-books; the _Upanishads,_ it is
reasonable to say are Kshattriya-books;--you often find in them
Brahmans coming to Kshattriyas to learn the Inner Wisdom. The
_Brahmanas_ are books of ritual; the _Upanishads_ came much
later that the _Brahmanas:_ that they represent a reaction
towards spirituality from the tyranny of a priestly caste. But
probably the day of the Kshattriyas was much earlier than that of
the priests. The Marlow-Shakespear-Milton time was the
Kshattriya period in English poetry; also the period during
which the greatest souls incarnated, and produced the greatest
work. So, perhaps, in this manvantara of the pre-classical
Sanskrit literature, the Rig-Veda with its hymns represents the
first, the Chaucerian period; but a Golden Age Chaucerian,
simple and pure,--a time in which the Mysteries really ruled
human life, and when to hymn the Gods was to participate in the
wonder and freeddom of their being. Think, perhaps, as the cycle
mounted to its hour of noon, esotericism opened its doors to pour
forth an illumination yet stronger and more saving: mighty egos
incarnated, and put in writing the marvelous revelations of the
_Upanishads:_ there may have been a descent towards matter, to
call forth these more explicit declarations of the Spirit. The
exclusive caste-system had not been evolved by any means, nor was
to be for many ages: the kings are at the head of things; and
they, not the priests, the chief custodians of the Deeper
Wisdom.--And then, later, the Priest-cast made its contribution,
evolving in the _Brahmanas_ the ritual of their order; with an
implication, ever growing after the beginning of the Kali-Yuga,
that only by this ritual salvation could be attained. Not that
it follows that this was the idea at first. Ritual has its
place: hymns and chantings, so they be the right ones, performed
rightly, have their decided magical value; we can understand
that in its inception and first purity, this Brahmana literature
may have been a growth or birth, under the aegis of Alawn of the
Harmonies, of the magic of chanted song.

And having said all this, and reconsidering it, one feels that
to attribute these three branches of literature to a single
manvantara is a woeful foreshortening. I suppose the Rig-V