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It is true that such evils as caste, infant marriage, and many similar customs did not exist at all in Vedic days. But it is also true that not a few serious evils of ancient times, such as drunkenness, human sacrifice, and slavery, do not generally exist in India to-day.
The merit which the giver acquires by making the gift, is equal to what the taker acquires by accepting the food. Both the giver and the acceptor depend equally upon each other. Even this is what the Rishis have said. There where Brahmanas exist, possessed of Vedic lore and conduct, people are enabled to earn the sacred fruits of gifts and to enjoy them both here and hereafter.
Thou art mortifications, thou art severe mortifications, thou art very severe mortifications. Thou art he who observes vows and religious and other pious rites. Thou art freed from all errors. Thou art a Brahmacharin. Thou tookest birth in the womb of Prisni. Thou art he from whom have flowered all Vedic rites and acts. Thou art unborn. Thou pervadest all things. Thy eyes are on all things.
Sacrificial rites survived in the early Vedic period, but they had lost all prophetic significance. They terminated in themselves and rested upon their own value. There was no remembered promise and no expectation of any specific fulfilment.
Sir Edwin Arnold popularized it by his metrical rendering under the name of "The Secret of Death," and Ralph Waldo Emerson gives its story in brief at the close of his essay on "Immortality." There is no consensus of opinion regarding the place of this Upanishad in Vedic literature.
The Vishnu Purana relates how Maitreya, wishing to have his knowledge of Vedic matters strengthened by the holy Parasara, who through the favour of Pulastya and Vasishtha had obtained an insight into the true nature of the highest divinity, began to question Parasara, 'I am desirous to hear from thee how this world originated, and how it will again originate in future, and of what it consists, and whence proceed animate and inanimate things; how and into what it has been resolved, and into what it will in future be resolved? &c.
The earth became adorned with many mines filled with jewels and gems, and the chant of Vedic recitations and other melodious sounds swelled up on the occasion of that triumph of the celestials. Human beings, endued with firm minds, and all adhering to the auspicious path that is trod by the righteous, began to take pleasure in Vedic and other religious rites and acts.
Even in Vedic times there were people who did not believe in the existence of Indra . It is clear that some miracles require more evidence than others and many old stories are so fantastic that they may justly be put aside because those who reported them did not see, as we can, what difficulties they involve and hence felt no need for caution in belief.
It is hardly necessary to do more than allude to the Fiji custom of strangling all the wives of the deceased at his funeral, or to the equally well-known Hindu rite of suttee. Though, as Wilson has shown, the latter rite is not supported by any genuine Vedic authority, but only by a shameless Brahmanic corruption of the sacred text, Mr.
Hence it must be the word which was "in the beginning" and corresponds to the Logos of Christian theology. It is because of the all-embracing significance of this name that it is used so universally in the Vedic Scriptures to designate the Absolute. This Word is indeed Brahman. This Word is indeed the Supreme. He who knows this Word obtains whatever he desires.
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