utterances of such as were thoroughly versed in Vedic and sacrificial
lore and competent to act as Brahmans or superintending priests." But
in view of the fact that the Brâhma@nas were also supposed to be as
much revealed as the Vedas, the present writer thinks that Weber's view
is the correct one.]

14

system, unparalleled anywhere but among the Gnostics. It is now
generally believed that the close of the Brâhma@na period was not later
than 500 B.C.


The Âra@nyakas.

As a further development of the Brâhma@nas however we get the Âra@nyakas
or forest treatises. These works were probably composed for old men who
had retired into the forest and were thus unable to perform elaborate
sacrifices requiring a multitude of accessories and articles which could
not be procured in forests. In these, meditations on certain symbols
were supposed to be of great merit, and they gradually began to supplant
the sacrifices as being of a superior order. It is here that we find
that amongst a certain section of intelligent people the ritualistic ideas
began to give way, and philosophic speculations about the nature of
truth became gradually substituted in their place. To take an
illustration from the beginning of the B@rhadâra@nyaka we find that
instead of the actual performance of the horse sacrifice (_as'vamedha_)
there are directions for meditating upon the dawn (_U@sas_) as the head
of the horse, the sun as the eye of the horse, the air as its life, and
so on. This is indeed a distinct advancement of the claims of speculation