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Race comes out in that, as it does in the endless sacrifices, soma drinking, magical austerities, and puerile follies of Vedic and Brahmanic gods, the deities of a people fallen early into its sacerdotage and priestly second childhood.
All the Vedântist schools labour to prove that they are in harmony not only with the Upanishads but with the Brahma-sûtras. The philosophers of the Sâṅkhya are more detached from literature but though they ignore the existence of the deity, they acknowledge the Veda as a source of knowledge. Their recognition, however, has the air of a concession to Brahmanic sentiment.
The further development of Indian religion, apart from Buddhism, is in two directions. There is a philosophical movement, in which the Brahmanic ideas on God, the world, the soul and its changes, are further worked out, and which leads to the six schools of Hindu philosophy. On the other hand, the gods have their history.
With him the restraint of the lower passions is with a view to the culture of the higher. The man of sin must die, that the man of God may live and prosper. This is the Christ ideal, as opposed to the Brahmanic. And the leaven of this ideal of life is spreading all over India and is transforming the aspirations of millions.
In all ages a common characteristic appears in the most divergent Indian creeds—the belief that by a course of mental and physical training the soul can attain to a state of bliss which is the prelude to the final deliverance attained after death. We may begin by examining Brahmanic ideas as to meditation. Many of them are connected with the word Yoga, which has become familiar to Europe.
According to one story Bijjala, who was a Jain, persecuted the Lingâyats and was assassinated by them. But there are other versions and the early legends of the sect merit little credence. The Lingâyats are Puritans. They reject caste, the supremacy of the Brahmans, sacrifices and other rites, and all the later Brahmanic literature.
The government is, in an important sense, established upon Christian principles; and in all its administrative processes exemplifies the Christian, as distinct from the Hindu and Brahmanic, view of justice and of right conduct; so that, if one were able to perceive clearly the spiritual forces at work in the institutional and social life of India, he would see not only that the foundation, but also that largely the superstructure, is becoming Christian in its character.
After the epoch of Śaṅkara, the history of Indian Buddhism is confined to the Pâla kingdom. Elsewhere we hear only of isolated grants to monasteries and similar acts of piety, often striking but hardly worthy of mention in comparison with the enormous number of Brahmanic inscriptions.
Devotion to God is recognized as one among other methods for attaining emancipation and if this particular procedure, which is mentioned in relatively few passages, were omitted, the rest of the system would be unaffected. It is therefore probable that the theistic portions of the Yoga are an addition made under Brahmanic influence.
We need not enquire into its place of origin for it is clearly the final intellectual product of the schools which produced the Upanishads and the literature which preceded them, and though it may be difficult to say at what point we are justified in applying the name Vedânta to growing Brahmanic thought, the growth is continuous. The name means simply End of the Veda.
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