The first general impression produced by a perusal of the law-books is that the popular religion has remained unaffected by philosophy.  And this is correct in so far as that it must be put first in describing the codes, which, in the main, in keeping the ancient observances, reflect the inherited faith.  When, therefore, one says that pantheism[7] succeeded polytheism in India, he must qualify the assertion.  The philosophers are pantheists, but what of the vulgar?  Do they give up polytheism; are they inclined to do so, or are they taught to do so?  No.  For there is no formal abatement in the rigor of the older creed.  Whatever the wise man thought, and whatever in his philosophy was the instruction which he imparted to his peers, when he dealt with the world about him he taught his intellectual inferiors a scarcely modified form of the creed of their fathers.  How in his own mind this wise man reconciled the two sets of opinion has been shown above.  The works of sacrifice, with all the inherited belief implied by them, were for him preparatory studies.  The elasticity of his philosophy admitted the whole world of gods, as a temporary reality, into his pantheistic scheme.  It was, therefore, neither the hypocrisy of the Roman augur, nor the fear of results that in his teaching held him to the inheritance he had received.  Gods, ghosts, demons, and consequently sacrifices, rites, ordeals, and formulae were not incongruous with his philosophical opinions.  He himself believed in these spiritual powers and in the usefulness of serving them.  It is true that he believed in their eventual doom, but so far as man was concerned they were practically real.  There was, therefore, not only no reason why the sage should not inculcate the old rites, but there was every reason why he should.  Especially in the case of pious but ignorant people, whose wisdom was not yet developed to a full appreciation of divine relativity, was it incumbent on him to keep them, the lower castes, to the one religion that they could comprehend.

It is thus that the apparent inconsistency in exoteric and esoteric beliefs explains itself.  For the two are not contradictory.  They do not exclude each other.  Hindu pantheism includes polytheism with its attendant patrolatry, demonology, and consequent ritualism.[8]

With rare exceptions it was only the grosser religion that the vulgar could understand; it was only this that they were taught and believed.

Thus the old Vedic gods are revered and worshipped by name.  The Sun, Indra, and all the divinities embalmed in ritual, are placated and ‘satiated’ with offerings, just as they had been satiated from time immemorial.  But no hint is given that this is a form; or that the Vedic gods are of less account than they had been.  Moreover, it is not in the inherited formulae of the ritual alone that this view is upheld.  To be sure, when philosophical speculation is introduced, the Father-god comes to the fore; Brahm[=a][9]