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II.
BRAHMANISM.
I. RITUAL.
Gradual extension and general character of the religion of the Atharva-Veda, the Yajur-Veda and the Brahmanas. — Changes introduced into the pantheon. — Still greater changes in the spirit and institutions.—The Brahman a member of a caste. — Formation of a sacred language and literature. — The Brahmacarya and the Brahmanical schools. — Ritualism and formalism : the rites come to the foreground and the gods retire into the shade. — Sketch of the cultus according to the Brahmanas and the Sutras. — The Grihya ritual : the ancient Smriti and the Dharma. — The Crauta ritual : ishti and somayaga. — Aristocratic, expensive, and bloody character of this worship : animal sacrifice ; human sacrifice ; the anumarana, or the suicide of the widow. — The authorised religion of the Brahmans recognised neither images nor sanctuaries. — Propagated, its exclusive spirit notwithstanding, among foreign races, in the Dekhan, and as far as the Sunda Islands :
the Veda at Bali.
The geographical region of the Hymns extends from the valley of Cabul to the banks of the Ganges, and perhaps beyond; but the true country of their birth, that in regard to which they supply the most data, is the Punjab.[1] In the age that follows, which we have now reached, we see the religions of the Veda advancing eastward, and gradually taking possession of the vast and fertile plains of Hindustan. From the epoch of the Brahmanas their centre is no longer in the basin of the Indus, the tribes of which
- ↑ Its limits are these : On the west the Kubha (Rig -Veda, v. 53, 9; X. 75, 6), the Kw^-qv of the Greeks, the river Cabul and its affluents, and the Gandharis (Rig-Veda, i. 126, 7) , a tribe of the valley; the Rasa, which corresponds with the Zend name of the Jaxartes, appears to be mythical in the Rig-Veda (Aufrecht, Morgenl. Gesellsch., xiii. 498). On
