den Age.--Well; each of the races has some function to
fulfil. And it is not modern India that has done this; she has
not done it of her own good will,--has had no good will to do it.
It is the Akbars the Anquetil Duperrons and Sir William Joneses,
--and above all, and far above all, H. P. Blavatsky,--whom we
have to thank.

So much, then, for the age of the Vedic literature. It passed,
and we come to an age when that literature had become sacred. It
seems to me that in the natural course of things it would take a
very long time for this to happen. You may say that in the one
analogy we have whose history is well known,--the _Koran,_--we
have an example of a book sacred as soon as written. But I do
not believe the analogy would hold good here. The _Koran_ came
as the rallying-standard of a movement which was designed to work
quick changes in the outer fabric of the world; it came when the
cycles had sunk below any possibility of floating spiritual
wisdom on to the world-currents;--and there were the precedents
of Judaism and Christianity, ever before the eyes of Mohammed,
for making the new religious movement center about a Book. But
in ancient India, I take it, you had some such state of affairs
as this: classes there would be, according to the natural
differences of egos incarnating; but no castes; religion there
was,--that is to say, an attention to, an aspiration towards, the
spiritual side of life; but no religions,--no snarling sects and
jangling foolish creeds. Those things (a God's mercy!) had not
been invented then, nor were to be for thousands of years. The
foremost souls, the most spiritual, gravitated upward to the
headship of tribes and nations; they were the _kings,_ as was
proper they should be: King-Initiates, Teachers as well as
Rulers of the people. And they ordained public ceremonies in
which the people, coming together, could invoke and participate
in the Life from Above. So we read in the Upanishads of those
great Kshattriya Teachers to whom Brahmans came as disciples.
Poets made their verses; and what of these were good, really
inspired, suitable--what came from the souls of Poet-Initiates,--
would be used at such ceremonies: sung by the assembled
multitudes; and presently, by men specially trained to sing
them. So a class rose with this special function; and there
were other functions in connexion with these ceremonies, not
proper to be performed by the kings, and which needed a