Whether human sacrifices were offered in India when the Vedas were composed we do not know, but it is believed to be probable.  The oldest form of sacrifice was the offering of food to the deity.  Dr. H. C. Trumbull, in his work on “The Blood Covenant,” thinks that the origin of animal sacrifices was like that of circumcision,—­a pouring out of blood (the universal, ancient symbol of life) as a sign of devotion to the deity; and the substitution of animals was a natural and necessary mode of making this act of consecration a frequent and continuing one.  This presents a nobler view of the whole sacrificial system than the common one.  Yet doubtless the latter soon prevailed; for following upon the devoted life-offerings to the Divine Friend, came propitiatory rites to appease divine anger or gain divine favor.  Then came in the natural human self-seeking of the sacerdotal class, for the multiplication of sacrifices tended to exalt the priesthood, and thus to perpetuate caste.

Again, the Brahmans, if practising austerities to weaken sensual desires, like the monks of Syria and Upper Egypt, were meditative and intellectual; they evolved out of their brains whatever was lofty in their system of religion and philosophy.  Constant and profound meditation on the soul, on God, and on immortality was not without its natural results.  They explored the world of metaphysical speculation.  There is scarcely an hypothesis advanced by philosophers in ancient or modern times, which may not be found in the Brahmanical writings.  “We find in the writings of these Hindus materialism, atomism, pantheism, Pyrrhonism, idealism.  They anticipated Plato, Kant, and Hegel.  They could boast of their Spinozas and their Humes long before Alexander dreamed of crossing the Indus.  From them the Pythagoreans borrowed a great part of their mystical philosophy, of their doctrine of transmigration of souls, and the unlawfulness of eating animal food.  From them Aristotle learned the syllogism....  In India the human mind exhausted itself in attempting to detect the laws which regulate its operation, before the philosophers of Greece were beginning to enter the precincts of metaphysical inquiry.”  This intellectual subtlety, acumen, and logical power the Brahmans never lost.  To-day the Christian missionary finds them his superiors in the sports of logical tournaments, whenever the Brahman condescends to put forth his powers of reasoning.

Brahmanism carried idealism to the extent of denying any reality to sense or matter, declaring that sense is a delusion.  It sought to leave the soul emancipated from desire, from a material body, in a state which according to Indian metaphysics is being, but not existence.  Desire, anger, ignorance, evil thoughts are consumed by the fire of knowledge.