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Updated: June 24, 2025
+1103+. In India the Upanishads practically abolished the national pantheon and the old Brahmanic ritual knowledge, they taught, was the key to bliss, and the knowledge was not that of the Veda, it came by reflection; emancipation from earthly bonds, absorption into the Infinite, was the goal of effort, but the effort was individualistic and led to no devotional organization.
The great Indian religions, whether Brahmanic or Buddhistic, teach as their cardinal doctrine that life is an evil. Buddhism is more pronounced in this, for it teaches more emphatically than even the Kosekin that the chief end of man is to get rid of the curse of life and gain the bliss of Nirvana, or annihilation.
In its present form it can hardly be earlier than the sixteenth century A.D. The Nepâla-mâhâtmya is a similar work which, though of Brahmanic origin, puts Buddha, Vishnu and Śiva on the same footing and identifies the first with Krishna. The Vâgvatî-mâhâtmya on the other hand is strictly Śivaite and ignores Buddha's claims to worship. But let us return to the decadence of Buddhism in India.
The statuary and carving of the Asokan period and immediately succeeding centuries is exclusively Buddhist. As already mentioned, we have evidence that in the fifth or sixth century before Christ the Vedic or Brahmanic religion was not the only form of worship and philosophy in India.
This passage suggests that Kṛishṇa represents a tribe of highland nomads who worshipped mountains and cattle and came to terms with the Brahmanic ritual only after a struggle. The worship of mountain spirits is common in Central Asia, but I do not know of any evidence for cattle-worship in those regions.
Even at the outset it was not free from a strong infusion of magic; the Arahat, like the Brahmanic ascetic before him, was believed to obtain influence over the gods by his virtues, and thus a claim to supernatural power is brought in, which agrees but ill with the ethical doctrine.
In Tennyson he may be guessed to represent the fabled esoteric lore of old religions, with their vague pantheisms, and such magic as the tapas of Brahmanic legends. He is wise with a riddling evasive wisdom: the builder of Camelot, the prophet, a shadow of Druidry clinging to the Christian king.
If a Brahmana takes food that has been cooked by a Kshatriya, it diminishes his energy; if he takes the food provided by a Sudra, it dims his Brahmanic lustre; and if he takes the food provided by a goldsmith or a woman who has neither husband nor children it lessens the period of his life.
Yet the ideal Brahmanic life, which by no means excludes intellectual activity, is laid out in severe and noble lines and though on its good side somewhat beyond the reach of human endeavour and on its bad side overloaded with pedantry and superstition, it combines in a rare degree self-abnegation and independence.
The Rudra of the Yajur and Atharva Vedas is not Brahmanic: he is not the god of priests and orderly ritual, but of wild people and places. But he is not a petty provincial demon who afflicts rustics and their cattle.
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