had been sown, and had even, under the forcing influences of the nascent sacerdotalism, begun to germinate. The seeds were still under the foot, still in the earth, while the Vedic Rishis lived, but in the centuries which followed those seeds grew into forests, in which their sons were inextricably entangled and hopelessly bewildered.

2. THE BRAHMANAS.*

These mark the next point at which the inquiry into the Hindu belief in the soul's life after death can be resumed, and its growth measured. Sacerdotalism is now "full-blown."+ The Aryans have penetrated further into India. The consequent changes and conquests have contributed to the growth of Brahmanical

does not comprehend it; he who has beheld it, has it verily hidden (from him); he, whilst yet enveloped in his mother's womb, is subject to many births, and has entered upon evil." ("Hymns of the R.-V.,” vol. ii. 137, 138.) But as the late Professor Goldstücker observed (Art. Transmigration, "Chambers's Cyclop."), "The word of the text, bahuprajah, rendered by Wilson, according to the commentators, 'is subject to many births,' may, according to the same commentators, also mean, 'has many offsprings,' or 'has many children;' and as the latter is the inore literal and usual sense of the word, whereas the former is artificial, no conclusion whatever regarding the doctrine of transmigration can safely be founded on it." Besides, such a doctrine is entirely alien to Vedic modes of thought.

* As to the date of the Brahmanas, the place they occupy in Sanskrit literature, their design, relation to the Vedas, &c., see Max Müller's "Anc. Sans. Lit.," pp. 342 ff.; Muir's "Sans. Texts," ii. pp. 178 ff. + Professor Roth, quoted in Dr. Muir's "Sans. Texts," ii. 183.

pretensions. The priest has extended and deepened his command over time and eternity. The number of the sacrifices has been increased, their efficacy heightened, their minutest details made essential. The supersession of the old Vedic naturalism is complete. The names

of the old gods remain, but their natures are changed.

The speculative principles, which form the basis of this full-blown sacerdotalism, have also developed. Thought has changed the formal into the material element. It had made sacrifice first please, then command, then become greater than the gods, and now, finally, the source of gods, man, and the universe.

Prayer or devotion has risen by a similar process to be Brahma (Neuter), the supreme, the self-existent.

The gods became immortal by sacrifice.* Brahma produced out of himself the universe,† was, as to his essence, in the Brahman, pervaded and so made the once mortal gods immortal.‡ Sacerdotal thought, pursuing its career of abstraction, has thus deified its own conceptions. Brahmanical sacrifice is the source and basis and very substance of the universe. Brahmanical thought is eternal, its vehicle divine. The old worship still stands, only in more developed forms,

*

S'atapatha Brahmana, x. 4, 3, 1—8; xi. 1, 2, 12.

Ib., xi. 2, 3, 1; xiii. 7, 1, 1.

Ib., xi. 2, 3, 1 ff. See a variety of passages in Muir's "Sans. Texts," iv. 24 ff.; v. 387 ff.

but sacerdotal thought, at once idealizing and abstractive, has explained into, or inserted beneath, it, a circle of ideas evolved from the old, but destructive of it.

In harmony with these general tendencies, the belief in a life after death has alike on its material and formal sides developed. There is the clear conception of another life conditioned, as to its nature and issues, by the present. The rewards received in it are determined by the sacrifices offered here. The greater the latter in number and value, the higher the former. These rewards are, indeed, on one side, continued individual life, proportioned in its felicity and duration to the quantity and quality of the sacrifices performed; but they point, on another side, to a union with Brahma, or a transmutation into other gods, which is hardly compatible with continued individuality. Thus it is said that he who sacrifices in a certain way "conquers for himself an union with these two gods (Aditya and Agni), and an abode in the same sphere."* Again, those who offer particular sacrifices "become Agni, Varuna, or Indra, attain to union and the same spheres with these gods respectively."+ Again, "he who sacrifices with a burnt offering arrives by Agni as the door to Brahma, and, having so arrived, he attains to a union with Brahma, and abides in the same sphere with him."

And he

S'atap. Brah., xi. 6. 2, 2, 3.

+ Ib., ii. 6, 4, 8.

Ib. xi. 4, 4, 1.

who reached this union was not, while he who did not reach it was, subject to repeated births and changes. Thus, a passage of the S'atapatha Brahmana represents the gods as made immortal by certain sacrifices, and then proceeds: "Death said to the gods, 'In the very same way, all men (also) shall become immortal, then what portion will remain for me?' The gods replied, 'Henceforward no other being shall become immortal with his body, when thou shalt have seized that part. Now, every one who is to become immortal through knowledge, or by work, shall become immortal after parting with his body.' This, which they said 'by knowledge or by work,' means that knowledge which is Agni, that work which is Agni. Those who so know this, or who perform this rite, are born again after death, and, by being so born, they attain immortality. Whilst those who do not so know, or who do not perform this rite, are, indeed, born again after death, but become again and again his food."*

The first italicized clause plainly promises final emancipation from death; the second as plainly implies successive appearances in a bodily form, subject to mortality. And the same thought is, in another pas

*

x. 4, 3, 9. Translated in Dr. Muir's "Sans. Texts," iv. 49 f.; v. 316 f. All the passages quoted in this section will be found in the sixth chapter of 18th section of latter volume.

sage, thus expressed :-" He who does so (studies the Veda) is freed from dying a second time, and attains to a union with Brahma."* The Brahmanas, then, did not regard the state after death as necessarily final. It was so to the good who attained the abode of the gods, or union with Brahma, but was not so to the bad. Hence the balances in which a man's deeds are weighed may be either in this world or the next. If a man places himself in the balances here he escapes them hereafter, but if not, then he must be weighed there, and follow the result;† i.e., the pious in this life escape all changes in the next, others shall be subjected to change, determined by the relative proportions of the good and evil deeds placed in the balances.

+

Again, the theory alike of reward and retribution is, that like seeks like, or, rather, that the reward is of the same nature as the merit, the punishment as the sin. "Hence they say that a man is born into the world which he has made." "So many sacrifices as a man has performed when he departs from this world, with so many is he born in the other world after his death."§ Certain sacrifices "free from the mortal body" and raise to heaven, certain others "conquer" for the offerer much less. Certain sacrifices secure a more, others a less, spiritual body.¶ Some become the soul

* S'atap. Brah., xi. 5, 6, 9. § Ib., x. 6, 3, 1.

+ Ib., xi. 2, 7, 33.

| Ib., xi. 2, 6, 13.

Ib., vi. 2, 2, 27. ¶ Ib., x. 1, 5, 4.