than this, for the welfare of the people the princes also were to be advised with reference to their own conduct, since they, without proper guidance, would have miss used their authority.
But with such a huge task before the Brāhmanas. what power did they have? A11 that they had to rely on was their knowledge of the sacred literature, for which all people had high respect. Therefore, all that they could do to prevent improper conduct was to condemn it in strong language on the authority of the Vedas.
Again, the education of the people was very poor. Although the sciences and philosophies could develop, and did develop. without the art of writing, or at least without any extensive use of it, they could by no means be popular. Learning was confined to a small class of people who developed their mental powers very highly, while the masses were ignorant. The masses could not have been guided either by utility or by abstract moral principles. They were to be compelled to follow righteous conduct, either through the terrors of the regal sceptre or of hell.[1] All these facts had a determinate relation with the motives of the writer. When a dharma-writer tells us that a certain action leads to hell or to
- ↑ On the one hand, thought, perfectly free, freer and more liberal than in any other place in the world; and, on the other, gross superstition amounting to savagers'. Such is the contrast which the faith of the Hindu presents. This peculiarity is due to the extreme difference in learning which existed and exists in the various grades of society. Even to-day the intellectual classes of India will not compare unfavorably with the intellectual classes of any country, while the masses are still laboring in utter ignorance, and are kept orderly and moral, not by regard to civil and social ideals, but by beliefs such as the dharma-writings have spread.
