226 INDIA (RELIGIONS AND RELIGIOUS LITERATURE) mixed castes are names of professions and trades, of which some were indicated by the names of the cities or districts in which they were most largely represented and famous. Thus the caste of singers, who descended, as Manu states, from a Vaisya and a Kshatriya woman, are called M-Jgadhas, evidently he- cause Magadha was at one time the home of the most famous singers. These trades and professions stood in various degrees of esteem, and their origin was accordingly stated to be from various unions between higher and lower castes. The aboriginal population was also gradually classified according to the Aryan system, which gave rise to the other division of unclean castes, whom Europeans call pa- riahs, from the name of a small Tamil caste of this grade with whom they came most in contact. It is not to be supposed that the castes were established without struggle on the part of those who were reduced to infe- riority. For a time kings, nobility, and priests must have worked hand in hand to subjugate the people. The legend of the Paracu-Raina shows that the Brahmans did not gain supe- riority over the Kshatriyas without bloodshed. Turning to the changes produced in the reli- gious ideas of the Hindoos during this period, it is seen that the Vedic pantheism was grad- ually absorbed by the one Brahma, and that the character of Hindoo worship is decidedly ascetic. Speculation is no longer intent on solving the mystery of the origin of the world, but on devising a process by which the world is to return to the Brahma from which it ema- nated. This is the point of contact between Brahmanism and Buddhism. Brahma, in the neuter gender, is an impersonality, the sum of all nature, the germ of all that is, the one that embraces everything. The Kena or Talava- kSra Upanishad says of it: "Eye, tongue, mind, cannot reach it ; we comprehend it not ; we cannot teach it to any one ; it is other than all that is known and all that is unknown." Unmeaning words are therefore applied to it. One of them is the mysterious syllable 6m, the wonderful trinity of sounds. A Sanskrit 6 is a diphthong, and by giving it a nasal utterance it sounds like 6m ; hence it has three letters, but only one sound. The Mandukya-TJpanishad is entirely filled with explanations of this little word. Among others it says : " Om is immor- tal. Its unfolding is this universe, is all that was, is, and shall be. Indeed, all is the word 6m ; and if there is anything outside of these three manifestations, it is also dm. . . . For this all is Brahma ; this soul is Brahma. This soul has four existences." A is its waking con- dition, U its dreaming, M its sleep, and the whole is its entire existence. Brahma as the abstract principle of the world reappears in a concrete mythological form as the god Brahma, the Vedic Brahmanaspati. He is pictured with four heads, probably as lord of the four regions of the world. He is Prnjapati, the lord of all creatures, and Hiranyagarbha, the golden-wombed, the lord of the sun. Be- low him are the Lokapalas, stationed at the eight corners of the world to ward off the evil spirits, the Asuras ; they are Indra, Agni, Va- runa, Surya, Chandra or Soma as god of the moon, Vayu, Yama, and Kuvera. The Vedas do not mention the last, who was originally a man, but who is now a god of wealth, as a re- ward for his great humility to the Brahmans. Brahma's wife is Sarasvati, who has ceased to be the goddess of the river, and is now goddess of order, harmony, poetry, oratory, language, and all intelligence. She has absorbed the attri- butes of Vatch, and is invoked for the instruc- tion of children. She is depicted with a book or a musical instrument in her hand. It is still believed that prayer and sacrifice called the world into existence, but that existence has no special purpose ; indeed, it is of evil, for evil came into the world with the world. As it is impossible that there ever can be a sinless world, so every pious person desires to be taken out of it, and to be relieved of his personal exis- tence. The bright and happy Veda religion has thus been transformed into a gloomy med- itation on the wretchedness of human life. Fatalism has come upon the Hindoo people, and they say, " Man's destiny is written on his skull." This laid the basis for astrology, and even Manu's exclusion of astrologists from the sacrifices failed to root out the belief in pre- destination. A natural consequence was a fur- ther development of the doctrine of the trans- migrations of the soul. Man was oppressed by the numerous distinctions of caste, and he was taught to consider them as part of the sys- tem of the world. Every creature descended from Brahma had to pass again through all the previous stages of his present existence in order to reach Brahma again. Manu says: " Man is born according to his deeds, ignorant, dumb, blind, deaf, deformed ; whoever has not done penance for his deeds will receive his punishment at his birth." Thus one who stole fruit would be a monkey; one who stole a horse, a tiger ; one who stole balm, a rat. When transformation into beasts or plants is not an adequate punishment, the evil doers are sent into one of the eight hells, each of which is more tormenting than the other. Hell is not an eternal punishment, but thousands of years of pain hardly suffice for a complete ab- solution. When this is attained, then begins the ascending scale of transmigrations, which reach to Brahma ; but it is possible that in the renewed existence as a human being man's sins are again so great that he must be thrown back to hell. Manu ranks worms, insects, fishes, serpents, tortoises, dogs, and asses as the lowest order. Elephants, horses, lions, boars, Sudras, and people not speaking Sanskrit are a step higher. The third class comprises thieves, actors, Rakshasas, and Picachas; the fourth athletes, dancers, armorers, drunkards, and Vaisyas ; the fifth, Kshatriyas, kings, emi- nent soldiers and orators, the Gandharvas and
