of Light to penetrate to the deep recesses of the popular mind; and the Smritis and the Purd‘zzas served as proper lenses for the purpose. It is remarkable that these rays, though partaking of the colour and form of the medium through which they pass, do not fail to convince any observer of their unmistakable presence in the darkest chaos, or in the most pleasant and soothing scenery. Thus were the Smriti an intermediate help to the understanding of the Vedic religion; as the Purina: were to the Srnritz's, but neither were free from the control of the Upanishads. The most popular of the Purdzzas, the Bhdgavata, for example, teaches in every word of it the Aupanishada doctrine of Brahma, but unfolds it in a manner best suited to the capacity of hearers in "this iron or kali age“. This is not the place for it, or I would fain go into an analysis of this masterpiece of popular religious exposition, explaining how the whole life of Knishzaa is but another way of representing the various phases of Brahmavidyé‘. And such explanation would be no abnormal stretch of the imagination, when we already have similar explanations of whole Paw-(ind: and poems, by commentators of no mean importance. If, again, the ceremonial governed by the spiritual has in this manner found various Purdzzas to explain the principal doctrines to the multitude, the Upam'shads also have a whole Par-613a, the gtma-Purdzza, devoted entirely to them, giving a popular explanation of the higher philosophy. Thus all branches of Indian religious literature unmistakably point to the Upam‘shads as their guide, and we can now understand what place the Brahmast’itras, which put forth a consistent explanation of the philosophy of the Upanishads, hold in the religious literature of India.
In India there are so many works assigned to a Vyâsa, that it becomes difficult, nay almost impossible, to determine which Vyâsa is meant to be the author of the Brahmasuŝtras. If it is the Vyâsa known as Vedavyâsa in the Bhâgavata, he is undoubtedly the same as Bâdarâyaṇa, son of Parâśara. The Purâṇas declare that he lived in the beginning of the Dvâparayuga, which we must, in this place, leave to represent what period of time it may.
