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There were still vast tracts of country under forest, but each of the states contained scenes of busy, happy life ; and there was constant communication between all the chief points. 27. Religion. During this period the Brahmans continued their sacrificial work, and also carried on the great task of bringing the aborigines under the influence of Aryan culture. New gods and demigods constantly found their way into the pantheon. The schools of the priests were more important than ever. The city of Taxila in the extreme north-west of the Punjab was the chief centre of learning. 28. Religion as a whole remained much as it was during the previous period. Innumerable sacrifices were still offered, and the old beliefs continued unchanged for most people. But the more intelligent men underwent a revolu tionary change. (a) The old hazy pantheistic faith became clear and was grasped more firmly. The whole world was paltry and unreal in comparison with the One which informed it and was its sole Reality. All the ordinary gods were spoken of as mere temporary manifestations of the unchanging and actionless Absolute. Yet the worship of the gods went on unchanged, as the Absolute is unknowable. (£) The problems raised by the very varying fortunes of men and the extraordinary differences in character met with everywhere were solved for the Indian mind by the doctrine of Transmigration and its pendant Karma. The doctrine of Transmigration is that souls are emana tions of the divine spirit, sparks from the central fire, drops from the ocean of divinity, that each soul is incarnated in a body times without number, that the same soul may be in one life a god, in another a man, in a third an animal or even a plant, and that there can be no rest for the soul nor 40 OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY relief from suffering until it finds release from the necessity of birth and returns to the divine source whence it came. The word karma means literally action, but the doctrine means the inevitable working out of action in new life. The idea is that a man's body, character, capacities and tempera ment, his birth, wealth and station, and the whole of his experience in life, whether of happiness or of sorrow, together form the just retribution for his deeds, good and bad, done in earlier existences. The expiation works itself out not only in his passive experience (bhoktritvam\ but in his actions also (kartritvani). Then these new actions form new karma which must necessarily be expiated in another existence ; so that, as fast as the clock of retribution runs down, it winds itself up again, as Deussen remarks. (c] As it is deeds, good or bad, that form karma, and thus lead to rebirth, the idea lies ready to hand that, if by any means a man can cease acting, he may thereby get Release from the necessity of rebirth. Quite naturally and unreflectingly men took action to mean the business of life ; so there arose the universal conviction that, if a man wished to reach Release, he must give up the ordinary life of man with all its gains, pleasures and interests and live an action- less existence, turning away from the unreal world and drawing near the one actionless Reality. The ascetic is the only truly religious man, according to this doctrine. (d] It was perhaps the doctrine of the frequent rebirth of souls which suggested the theory of the cyclic destruction and recreation of the world. The idea is that the crude, external, phenomenal world periodically returns to a state of undifferentiated invisibility ; souls leave their bodies ; and matter and souls remain in undisturbed peace until the moment comes for a new creation. Then matter begins once more to evolve ; inorganic things, the vegetable world, animals, men and gods come into being ; the process of ESSENTIAL HINDUISM 41 transmigration begins at the precise point where it stopped when the world disappeared ; the castes are re-formed ; the rishis see the Vedas once more ; and thus the world comes to be just as it was before. The period between creation and destruction is called a kalpa, the period of repose a pralaya. So much is common to all schools of Hindus, and to Buddhists as well. In the subdivision of the kalpa a descending series of four ages, corresponding roughly to the golden, silver, bronze, and iron ages of the Classics, is much used, but there are considerable differences in the detailed application of the idea.1 The Jains drop out the period of repose, and divide time into alternating periods of degeneration and progress. In all schools time has neither beginning nor end. (e) The Brahman was everywhere accepted as the divine teacher and sacrificer ; his Veda was the one Revelation ; and Caste was the heaven-sent system for the social organi zation of the people. (/) This then is essential Hinduism : — A. The Theory of God and the world, consisting of — (1) The one impersonal Reality and the unreal phenomenal world, which undergoes cyclic change. All minor gods are gathered under the pantheistic All. (2) Transmigration and Karma the explanation of the world. (3) Release from Transmigration and union with the one Reality, the object of all serious men. B. The organizing conception, consisting of— (r) The divine priest. (2) The inspired Veda. (3) Caste. 1 See p. 46. 42 OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY (£•) By the time that this new conception of the world had taken distinct form, it had become the custom to send every boy belonging to the Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaisya castes to a Brahmanical school to receive an education. A ceremony of initiation introduced the lad to this reli gious training. A Brahman priest muttered sacred texts over him and put the sacred thread on his shoulder ; and immediately thereafter his education began. It was a birth into a new life. Hence these three castes are known as twice-born. The fact that every man of these castes spent several years under Brahman discipline and teaching explains in some degree the extraordinary influence of the priestly class. No one but a Brahman was allowed to teach. Teaching, sacrificing, and receiving gifts were the three functions which belonged to them by virtue of their birth. This universal education of the boys of the three twice- born castes, coupled with the absolute exclusion of every other one from this, the one avenue to culture and know ledge then open in India, helps to explain the great predominance of these castes throughout India. No arrangement was made for giving girls an education ; marriage took the place of initiation in their case. (/i) By the end of our period we have trustworthy evidence to prove that two of the most characteristic Hindu customs were regarded as right, namely, the use of idols in worship and child-marriage. The Hindu law enjoined that a girl should be married before she reached the age of puberty, and this necessarily led to child-marriage. We may also note that by this time only the childless widow was allowed to re-marry. 29. This brief outline of Essential Hinduism is sufficient to show us what an overturning change the Indian mind had experienced. The steadily-growing culture of the Brahmans and the wider experience of men and things which ESSENTIAL HINDUISM 43 they were daily acquiring as they went on with the work of reducing the whole population of India under their own religious sway had brought them to this new and far-reaching system of thought. Under the wide dome of this universal pantheism they were able to gather all the aboriginal wor ships of the land and by tactful arrangements to give them a certain distinct unity. The common people continued their worship practically unchanged : only Brahman teachers taught Transmigration everywhere, and spoke of the great God behind all gods. How different all this is from the beliefs of the Rigveda \ This radical system has been taught wherever Hinduism has gone ; it lies behind all the philosophies and is implied in the asceticism, the laws, the worship, and the life of the people. NOTE. — The text below is the law of CHILD-MARRIAGE in the earliest Hindu Law-book: 'A girl should be given in marriage before puberty.' Gautama, Dharmasutra, xviii. 21. 44 OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY ILLUSTRATIVE READINGS 5. The One Reality Who is he whom we meditate on as the self? What is that self? That by which one sees, by which one hears, by which one smells scents, by which one forms speech, by which one discriminates sweet and sour?