theism. The pantheism is sometimes
not so much a coldly reasoned system as an aspiration, a yearning, a
deep-felt need of something better than the mob of gods who came in the
train of Indra, and the darker deities who were still crowding in. Even
in spite of the counteracting power of the Gospel mysticism has run
easily into pantheism in Europe, and orthodox Christians sometimes slide
unconsciously into it, or at least into its language.[14] But, as has
been already noted, a strain of pantheism existed in the Hindu mind from
early times.

Accordingly, these hermit sages, these mystic dreamers, soon came to
identify the human soul with God. And the chief end of man was to seek
that the stream derived from God should return to its source, and,
ceasing to wander through the wilderness of this world, should find
repose in the bosom of the illimitable deep, the One, the All. The
Brahmans attached the Upanishads to the Veda proper, and they soon came
to be regarded as its most sacred part. In this way the influence these
treatises have exercised has been immense; more than any other portion
of the earlier Hindu writings they have molded the thoughts of
succeeding generations. Philosophy had thus begun.

[Sidenote: Six philosophic schools.]
The speculations of which we see the commencement and progress in the
Upanishads were finally developed and classified in a series of writings
called the six Sastras or _darsanas_. These constitute the regular
official philosophy of India. They are without much difficulty reducible
to three leading schools of thought--the Nyaya, the Sankhya, and the
Vedanta.

Roundly, and speaking generally, we may characterize these systems as
theistic, atheistic, and pantheistic respectively.

[Sidenote: The Nyaya.]
It is doubtful, however, whether the earlier form of the Nyaya was
theistic or not. The later form is so, but it says nothing of the moral
attributes of God, nor of his government. The chief end of man,
according to the Nyaya, is deliverance from pain; and this is to be
attained by cessation from all action, whether good or bad.

[Sidenote: The Sankhya.]
The Sankhya declares matter to be self-existent and eternal. Soul is
distinct from matter, and also eternal. When it attains true knowledge
it is liberated from matter and from pain. The Sankhya holds the
existence of God to be without proof.

[Sidenote: The Vedanta.]
But the leading philosophy of India is unquestionably the Vedanta.