place and use in the Soma sacrifice; the contents of the Yajur-Veda are arranged in the order in which the verses were actually employed in the various religious sacrifices.  It is therefore called the Veda of Yajus—­sacrificial prayers.  These may be contrasted with the arrangement in the @Rg-Veda in this, that there the verses are generally arranged in accordance with the gods who are adored in them.  Thus, for example, first we get all the poems addressed to Agni or the Fire-god, then all those to the god Indra and so on.  The fourth collection, the Atharva-Veda, probably attained its present form considerably later than the @Rg-Veda.  In spirit, however, as Professor Macdonell says, “It is not only entirely different from the Rigveda but represents a much more primitive stage of thought.  While the Rigveda deals almost exclusively with the higher gods as conceived by a

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[Footnote 1:  Pa@nini, III. iii. 94.]

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comparatively advanced and refined sacerdotal class, the Atharva-Veda is, in the main a book of spells and incantations appealing to the demon world, and teems with notions about witchcraft current among the lower grades of the population, and derived from an immemorial antiquity.  These two, thus complementary to each other in contents are obviously the most important of the four Vedas [Footnote ref 1].”

The Brahma@nas. [Footnote ref 2]

After the Sa@mhitas there grew up the theological treatises called the Brahma@nas, which were of a distinctly different literary type.  They are written in prose, and explain the sacred significance of the different rituals to those who are not already familiar with them.  “They reflect,” says Professor Macdonell, “the spirit of an age in which all intellectual activity is concentrated on the sacrifice, describing its ceremonies, discussing its value, speculating on its origin and significance.”  These works are full of dogmatic assertions, fanciful symbolism and speculations of an unbounded imagination in the field of sacrificial details.  The sacrificial ceremonials were probably never so elaborate at the time when the early hymns were composed.  But when the collections of hymns were being handed down from generation to generation the ceremonials became more and more complicated.  Thus there came about the necessity of the distribution of the different sacrificial functions among several distinct classes of priests.  We may assume that this was a period when the caste system was becoming established, and when the only thing which could engage wise and religious minds was sacrifice and its elaborate rituals.  Free speculative thinking was thus subordinated to the service of the sacrifice, and the result was the production of the most fanciful sacramental and symbolic

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[Footnote 1:  A.A.  Macdonell’s History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 31.]