We know little of this popular religion by direct description before or even during the Buddhist period, but we have fragmentary indications of its character.  Firstly several incongruous observances have obtruded themselves into the Brahmanic ritual.  Thus in the course of the Mahavrata ceremony[237] the Hotri priest sits in a swing and maidens, carrying pitchers of water on their heads and singing, dance round an altar while drums are beaten.  Parallels to this may be found to-day.  The image of Krishna, or even a priest who represents Krishna, is swung to and fro in many temples, the use of drums in worship is distressingly common, and during the Pongol festivities in southern India young people dance round or leap over a fire.  Other remarkable features in the Mahavrata are the shooting of arrows into a target of skin, the use of obscene language (such as is still used at the Holi festival) and even obscene acts[238].  We must not assume that popular religion in ancient India was specially indecent, but it probably included ceremonies analogous to the Lupercalia and Thesmophoria, in which licence in words and deeds was supposed to promote fertility and prosperity.

We are also justified in supposing that offerings to ancestors and many ceremonies mentioned in the Grihya-sutras or handbooks of domestic ritual were performed by far larger classes of the population than the greater sacrifices, but we have no safe criteria for distinguishing between priestly injunctions and the real practice of ancient times.

Secondly, in the spells and charms of the Atharva[239], which received the Brahmanic imprimatur later than the other three Vedas, we find an outlook differing from that of the other Vedas and resembling the popular religion of China.  Mankind are persecuted by a host of evil spirits and protect themselves by charms addressed directly to their tormentors or by invoking the aid of beneficent powers.  All nature is animated by good and evil spirits, to be dealt with like other natural advantages or difficulties, but not thought of as moral or spiritual guides.  It is true that the Atharva often rises above this phase, for it consists not of simple folk-lore, but of folk-lore modified under-sacerdotal influence.  The protecting powers invoked are often the gods of the Rig Veda[240], but prayers and incantations are also addressed directly to diseases[241] and demons[242] or, on the other hand, to healing plants and amulets[243].  We can hardly be wrong in supposing that in such invocations the Atharva reflects the popular practice of its time, but it prefers the invocation of counteracting forces, whether Vedic deities or magical plants, to the propitiation of malignant spirits, such as the worship of the goddesses presiding over smallpox and cholera which is still prevalent in India.  In this there is probably a contrast between the ideas of the Aryan and non-Aryan races.  The latter propitiate the demon or disease; the Aryans invoke a beneficent and healing power.