just examined [Footnote ref 1].  The truth seems to me to be this, that the K@sattriyas and even some women took interest in the religio-philosophical quest manifested in the Upani@sads.  The enquirers were so eager that either in receiving the instruction of Brahman or in imparting it to others, they had no considerations of sex and birth [Footnote ref 2]; and there seems to be no definite evidence for thinking that the Upani@sad philosophy originated among the K@sattriyas or that the germs of its growth could not be traced in the Brahma@nas and the Ara@nyakas which were the productions of the Brahmins.

The change of the Brahma@na into the Ara@nyaka thought is signified by a transference of values from the actual sacrifices to their symbolic representations and meditations which were regarded as being productive of various earthly benefits.  Thus we find in the B@rhadara@nyaka (I.1) that instead of a horse sacrifice the visible universe is to be conceived as a horse and meditated upon as such.  The dawn is the head of the horse, the sun is the eye, wind is its life, fire is its mouth and the year is its soul, and so on.  What is the horse that grazes in the field and to what good can its sacrifice lead?  This moving universe is the horse which is most significant to the mind, and the meditation of it as such is the most suitable substitute of the sacrifice of the horse, the mere animal.  Thought-activity as meditation, is here taking the place of an external worship in the form of sacrifices.  The material substances and the most elaborate and accurate sacrificial rituals lost their value and bare meditations took their place.  Side by side with the ritualistic sacrifices of the generality of the Brahmins, was springing up a system where thinking and symbolic meditations were taking the place of gross matter and action involved in sacrifices.  These symbols were not only chosen from the external world as the sun, the wind, etc., from the body of man, his various vital functions and the senses, but even arbitrary alphabets were taken up and it was believed that the meditation of these as the highest and the greatest was productive of great beneficial results.  Sacrifice in itself was losing value in the eyes of these men and diverse mystical significances and imports were beginning to be considered as their real truth [Footnote ref 3].

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[Footnote 1:  Winternitz’s Geschichte der indischen Litteratur, I. pp. 197 ff.]

[Footnote 2:  The story of Maitryi and Yajnavalikya (B@rh.  II. 4) and that of Satyakama son of Jabala and his teacher (Cha.  IV. 4).]

[Footnote 3:  Cha.  V. II.]

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