482 BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM 



of a type as advanced as the Vedic hymns. How and why were they 

 produced or preserved? There must have been some peg to hang 

 them on. 



The Veda is in no sense a belles-lettres collection. All its books are 

 in some sense religious; they are for the most part, in fact, liturgic. 

 All early Brahmanical literary remains, no matter under what 

 impulse they were originally composed, were preserved for some 

 useful purpose. The Hindus of the time of the Veda, if we judge them 

 by their writings, were a practical people, in spite of the speculative 

 turn of their minds. Their literature of a hundred works or more, 

 the famous Upanishads not excepted, has in view personal advantage, 

 the favor of the gods, the grant of wishes, or the destruction of 

 enemies. The same motive, after all, pervades also the theosophic, 

 pessimistic Upanishads : they also pander to a desire the desire to 

 escape the eternal round of existences. Whatever is left of the litera- 

 ture of early Brahmanism was saved because it had managed to 

 obtain a work on some definite occasion, because it was primarily 

 composed for a religious purpose, or secondarily adapted to such a 

 purpose. It is not otherwise as regards the riddle. 



The Vedic word for riddle is brahmodya, or brahmavadya, that is, 

 analysis of, or speculation about the brahma, or religion. The great 

 sacrifices, the so-called frawia-sacrifices, such as rajasuya (coronation 

 of a king), or a^vamedha (horse-sacrifice), were for the most part 

 undertaken by kings and rich nobles, not by the smaller house- 

 holder who could not afford them, or had no occasion for them. 

 They had in them the elements of tribal or national festivals. Of 

 course they were expensive. A large number of priests had to be 

 present, and they were not at all shy about asking fees (ddkshina) for 

 their services. A sly way they had of making these fees exorbitant; 

 namely, they recited poems in praise of generous givers of old, 

 so-called ddnastutis, "gift-praises," and gathd nardc,anisyah, "stanzas 

 which sing the praises of generous men." In most of these simply 

 fabulous stories of presents to the Brahmans are recorded. They 

 sing these songs so loudly that the Vedic texts in their soberer moments 

 stamp them as lies (anrtam), and decry them as pollution ($amalairi). 

 Once the reciter of gift-praises and the man drunk with brandy 

 (sura) are placed on the same plane; they are so foul that gifts 

 from them must not be accepted. Now we are told distinctly that 

 the Vedic kings, or tribal Rajas, were not only interested in the 

 mechanical perfection and success of the sacrifices undertaken under 

 their patronage, but that they were even more impressed by the 

 speculative, mystic, and philosophic thoughts which were suggested 

 by various phases of the sacrifice. In later Upanishad times the 

 kings appear as the questioners of the great Brahmans who solve 

 for them the riddle of existence. Whenever their questions are an- 



