RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Brahmanisia
I. The Upanishads.
prised in the one famous phrase found in the Chandogya Upanishad: Tat tvam asi, " That art thou," or, in other words, " Thou art the Infinite." Though the summum bonum of the Upanishads is this saving knowledge and the reunion with the All-Soul which it brings, such a consummation is not requisite for all, since there are many who do not desire it, and for them minor blessings are reserved in a future life. The existence of the gods is not denied, though they be but phases of the All-Soul, nor is the advantage of sacrifice denied, for such offerings are still imperative. Herein lies, perhaps, the secret of the origin of the Upanishads.
The concluding portion of each Brahmana is an Aranyaka, or " forest-book," designed for the use of those forest hermits who had passed beyond the need of sacrifice, and in each Aranyaka is an Upanishad. Primarily, therefore, the Upanishads represented the text-books of those who had passed through the sacrificial stage of their religious life and were henceforth free to meditate on sacred things as seemed best in their own eyes. Later, however, the Upanishads became a special form of the sacred writings of the Hindus; and served as the basis of the most lofty of all their six orthodox systems of philosophy. To see in them a religious revolt of the second, or warrior, caste against Brahman control, as certain scholars have sought to do, seems, on the whole, scarcely warranted.
Somewhat subsequent to the Upanishads were developed the six orthodox systems of Indian philosophy, the Samkhya and Yoga, the Vaiseshika and Nyaya, and the Purvamimamsa and Vedanta. Of these the Vaiseshika and Nyaya 2. The Six are systems of logic rather than of Orthodox philosophy; the Samkhya and Yoga, which supplement each other, are essentially dualistic; while the Purvamimamsa and Vedanta, of which the former is the least important of all the systems, represent the spiritual aftermath of the Upanishads, and are, accordingly, rigidly pantheistic.
III. The Age of the Buddhistic and Jainistic Heresies: Beneath the excessive ritual of the Brahmanistic period and the pantheistic speculations of a chosen few still lay the popular faith of the Aryan invaders of India. Meanwhile, however, the course of immigration had moved still further to the east and become centered about the holy city of Benares. The doctrine of the misery of all earthly existence was by this time accepted by all, and the teachings of metempsychosis were fully established. The worship of Siva, originally a local godling of some aboriginal western tribe, was attaining such popularity that he was opposed as the Destroyer to the Vedic sun-god Vishnu, who was worshiped as the Preserver (of the universe). For the sake of symmetry, brahma, denoting in the Rig- Veda " prayer," was developed by the priestly theologians into Brahma, the Creator, who, though on the whole a pale abstract deity, respected rather than worshiped, formed the third member of the trimwrti, or triad.
Systems of Philosophy.
The religious texts of this period are comparatively few, though from them may be gleaned data of the greatest importance for a knowledge of India's faith. The principal sources are the law books, especially the famous code of Manu, and the Mahabharata, the great epic of India and the longest poem of all literature. From the point of view of orthodox Hinduism, however, the epoch, possibly because of the comparative scantiness of material, presents less of interest than any of the others. It was, on the other hand, essentially the age of heresy, this term denoting in India simply a formal denial of the divine authority of the three canonical Vedas. There had, of course, been heretics and infidels long before this period; traces of them occur as early as the tenth book of the Rig- Veda, but it was not until the period under consideration that heresies of lasting importance were able to develop. In the sixth century b.c. arose two independent teachers, both from tha Kshatriya, or warrior, class and both accordingly more or less antagonistic to the Brahmans. Forebodings of such a struggle between the two upper castes are not lacking in the Upanishads, where, in more than one instance, a warrior rose superior to a Brahman in theological learning.
Rebelling against Brahman supremacy, ignoring salvation by sacrifice, rejecting the authority of the Vedas, teaching emancipation from the pain of life and the misery of rebirth by personal service to all living creatures however lowly, and choosing, moreover, with pointed significance, as their linguistic medium the despised popular dialects instead of the hallowed Sanskrit of the Brahmans, Sakya Muni (Buddha) and Mahavira founded the religions which still exist as Buddhism and Jainism (qq.v.). When, after the lapse of nearly a millennium, those two religions lost their hold upon India, a new form of Brahmanism arose in what is known as Hinduism (q.v.) , the basis of which was a compromise between the orthodox and philosophical Brahmanism of pre-Buddhistic times and the religions of the Dravidian and other non- Aryan peoples of southern India. See India.
Bibliography: The literature of India itself is enormous, and that upon it is almost as great. A bibliography of India is much needed. The most accessible and convenient body of sources for the English reader is the SEE, more than half of which is devoted to translations from the various departments of Indian literature. Outside of this collection, the following texts and translations are important: Sanskrit Texts, Sacred Hymns, 6 vols., London, 1849-74, new ed., 1890-92; H. H. Wilson, Rig- Veda Sanhita, 6 vols., ib. 1850 sqq. (a translation); Rig Veda, a transl. by P. Peterson, ib. 1888; H. Grassmann, Rigveda ubersetzt, 4 vols., Leipsic, 1876-77; Rig-Veda, by A. Ludwig, in 6 vols., Prague, 1875-88 (Germ, transl., introduction and commentary); Sama-Veda, T. Benfey, Leipsic, 1848 (text and Germ, transl.); R. T. Griffith, Hymns of the Rigveda, Transl. with Commentary, 4 vols., Benares, 1889-92; idem, Hymns of the Samaveda, Transl. with Commentary, ib. 1893; idem, Hymns of the Atharva- Veda, ib., 2 vols., 1895-96; Atharvaveda, by A. Ludwig, 2 vols., Prague, 1876 (Germ, transl.); Atharva-V eda, hvre vii (viii, xiii) traduit . par V Henry, Paris, 1891-
1892; The Aitareya-Brahmana, transl. by M. Haug, 2 vols., Bombay, 1863; the Brahmanas of the Santa Veda have been edited by A. C. Burnell, 6 vols., London, Trubner, n.d.; Atharva-V eda Samhita, Translation and . Commentary by W. D. Whitney, ed. C. R. Lanman, 2 vols.,
Brahmo Somaj Bramhall