evelops powerfully and fruitfully in one aspect which attracts
grave and earnest imaginations. The Muni, the contemplative ascetic,
penetrates in meditation through the terrors of Siva's outward form to
the god's inward love and wisdom, and beholds in him his own divine
prototype. And so Siva comes to be figured in this nobler aspect as
the divine Muni, the supreme saint and sage.

[Footnote 18: For the original mortality of the gods see TS. VII. iv.
2, 1, SB. X. iv. 33 f., XI. i. 2, 12, ii. 3, 6; for their primitive
non-differentiation, TS. VI. vi. 8, 2, SB. IV. v. 4, 1-4.]

[Footnote 19: Cf. e.g. KB. III. 4 & 6, VI. 2-9, and Ap. SS. VI. xiv.
11-13.]

While the worship of Siva is slowly making its way into the heart of
Brahmanic ritualism, another movement is at work which is gradually
drawing many of the keenest intellects among the Brahmans away from
the study of ritual towards an idealistic philosophy which views all
ritual with indifference. Its literature is the Upanishads.

The passing of the Rigvedic age has left to the Brahmans a doctrinal
legacy, which may be thus restated: a single divine principle through
a prototypic sacrifice has given birth to the universe, and all the
processes of cosmic nature are controlled by sacrifices founded upon
that primeval sacrifice. In short, the ritual symbolises and in a
sense actually _is_ the whole cosmic process. The ritual implies both
the knowledge of the law of sacrifice and the proper practice of that
law, _both understanding and works_. This is the standpoint of the
orthodox ritualist. But there has also arisen a new school among the
Brahmans, that of the Aupanishadas, which has laid down for its first
doctrine that _works are for the sake of understanding_, that the
practice of ritual is of value only as a help to the mystic knowledge
of the All. But here they have not halted; they have gone a further
step, and declared that _knowledge once attained, works become
needless_. Some even venture to hint that perhaps the highest
knowledge is not to be reached through works at all. And the knowledge
that the Aupanishadas seek is of Brahma, and _is_ Brahma.

The word _brahma_ is a neuter noun, and in the Rig-veda it means
something that can only be fully translated by a long circumlocution.
It may be rendered as "the power of ritual devotion"; that is to say,
it denotes the mystic or magic force which is put forth by the
poet-priest of the Rig-veda when he performs th