The ritual literature of India is enormous and much of it has been edited and translated by European scholars with a care that merited a better object.  It is a mine of information respecting curious beliefs and practices of considerable historical interest, but it does not represent the main current of religious ideas in post-Buddhist times.  The Brahmans indeed never ceased to give the sacrificial system their theoretical and, when possible, their practical approval, for it embodies a principle most dear to them, namely, that the other castes can obtain success and heaven only under the guidance of Brahmans and by rites which only Brahmans can perform.  But for this very reason it incurred the hostility not only of philosophers and morally earnest men, but of the military caste and it never really recovered from the blow dealt it by Buddhism, the religion of that caste.  But with every Brahmanic revival it came to the front and the performance of the Asvamedha or horse sacrifice[162] was long the culminating glory of an orthodox king.

CHAPTER V

ASCETICISM AND KNOWLEDGE

1

As sacrifice and ceremonial are the material accompaniments of prayer, so are asceticism and discipline those of thought.  This is less conspicuous in other countries, but in India it is habitually assumed that the study of what we call metaphysics or theology needs some kind of physical discipline and it will be well to elucidate this point before describing the beginnings of speculation.

Tapas, that is asceticism or self-mortification, holds in the religious thought and practice of India as large a place as sacrifice.  We hear of it as early, for it is mentioned in the Rig Veda[163], and it lasts longer, for it is a part of contemporary Hinduism just as much as prayer or worship.  It appears even in creeds which disavow it theoretically, e.g. in Buddhism, and evidently has its root in a deep-seated and persistent instinct.

Tapas is often translated penance but the idea of mortification as an expiation for sins committed, though not unknown in India, is certainly not that which underlies the austerities of most ascetics.  The word means literally heat, hence pain or toil, and some think that its origin should be sought in practices which produced fever, or tended to concentrate heat in the body.  One object of Tapas is to obtain abnormal powers by the suppression of desires or the endurance of voluntary tortures.  There is an element of truth in this aspiration.  Temperance, chastity and mental concentration are great aids for increasing the force of thought and will.  The Hindu believes that intensity and perseverance in this road of abstinence and rapture will yield correspondingly increased results.  The many singular phenomena connected with Indian asceticism have been imperfectly investigated but a psychological examination would probably find that subjective results (such as visions