Title Thumbnail & Hero Image: Bharat Dev, source: www.pinterest.com, access date: Sep.6, 2025.
Indian Philosophy Volume 1.007 - Transition to the Upaniṣads
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First revision: Sep.6, 2025
Last change: Apr.20, 2026
Searched, gathered, rearranged, translated, and compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
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CHAPTER III
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TRANSITION TO THE UPANIṢADS
The general character of the Atharva-Veda – Conflict of cultures – The primitive religion of the Atharva-Veda-Magic and mysticism – The Yajur-Veda – The Brāhmaṇas – Their religion of sacrifice and prayer – The dominance of the priest – The authoritativeness of the Veda – Cosmology – Ethics – Caste – Future life.
I
THE ATHARVA-VEDA
"THE hymns of the Ṛg-Veda inextricably confused; the deities of an earlier era confounded; and again merged together in a pantheon now complete; the introduction of strange gods; recognition of a hell of torture; instead of many divinities, the one that represents all the gods and nature as well; incantations for evil purposes and charms for a worthy purpose; formulæ of malediction to be directed against those 'whom I hate and who hate me'; magical verses to obtain children, to prolong life, to dispel evil magic, to guard against poison and other ills; the paralysing extreme of ritualistic reverence indicated by the exaltation to godhead of the 'remnant' of sacrifice; hymns to snakes, to diseases, to sleep, time, and the stars; curses on the 'priest plaguer' - such in general outline is the impression produced by a perusal of the Atharva-Veda."1 In the Ṛg-Veda we come across strange utterances of incantations and spells, charms and witchcrafts, hymns to inanimate things, devils and demons, etc. We have the charms of the robbers to lull the dwellers in a house to sleep,2
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1. Hopkins: The Religions of India, p.151.
2. R.V., vii., 55.
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spells to prevent evil spirits causing women to miscarry,1 and charm to expel diseases.2 Though sorcery and magic prevailed in the times of the Ṛg-Veda, the Vedic seers did not encourage or recognise them. The stray references have the appearance of an external addition, while in the Atharva-Veda they are the main theme.
The weird religion that the Atharva-Veda represents is doubtless older than that of the Ṛg-Veda, though the Atharva-Veda collection is a later one. The Vedic Aryans as they advanced into India came across uncivilised tribes, wild and barbarous, and worshipping snakes and serpents, stocks and serpents, stocks and stones. No Society can hope to continue in a state of progressive civilisation in the midst of uncivilised and half-civilised tribes, if it does not meet and overcome the new situation by either completely conquering them or imparting to them elements of its own culture. The alternatives before us are either to destroy the barbarian neighbours or absorb them, thus raising them to a higher level, or allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and swamped by them. The first course was impossible on account of the paucity of numbers. The pride of race and culture worked against the third. The second was the only alternative left open, and it was adopted. While the Ṛg-Veda describes the period of conflict between the fair-skinned Aryans and the dark Dasyus01, which Indian mythology makes into a strife of Devas and Rākṣasas, the Atharva-Veda speaks to us of the period when the conflict is settled and the two are trying to live in harmony by mutual give and take. The spirit of accommodation naturally elevated the religion of the primitive tribes but degraded the Vedic religion by introducing into it sorcery and witchcraft. The worship of spirits and stars, trees and mountains and other superstitions of jungle tribes crept into the Vedic religion. The effort of the Vedic Aryan to educate the uncivilised resulted in the corruption of the ideal which he tried to spread. In his Introduction to the translation of the selections from the Atharva-Veda, Bloomfield remarks: "Even witchcraft is part of the Hindu's religion; it had penetrated and become intimately blended with the holiest Vedic rites;
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1. R.V., x. 122.
2. R.V., x. 163.
Notes & Narratives:
Dasyus, source: clipart.com, access date: Mar.18, 2026.1.
01. Dasyus (दस्यु - ทัสยุ) - The ancient dwellers of North Bharat. What we see in Ṛg-Veda is mostly a history of the Āryans from the period of their exodus from the plateau Kumbha till they reached the banks of the Yamunā. The plateau of Kuṃbha is Kabul. The Dasyus were the first people the Aryans had to confront with after passing the Indus. Ṛg-Veda bears testimony to the fact that the civilization of the Dasyus was far advanced than that of the Āryans. Śaṃbara, King of the Dasyus, was the ruler of hundred cities. All the cities were fortified with strong walls and fortresses, which are described as 'aśvamayī', 'āyasī', 'śatabhujī' etc. The greatest enemies of the Āryans were the 'Paṇis' of these cities. They were a particular class of people of these cities. In the 'Nirukta of Yāska' it is mentioned that paṇis were traders. Names of many of the Kings of the Dasyus occur in the Ṛg-Veda. Dhuni, Cumuri, Pipru, Varcas, Śaṃbara and such others are the most valiant and mighty among them. The most important of the several tribes of the Dasyus were the Śimyus, the Kīkaṭas, Śigrus and the Yakṣus. They are mentioned as the Anāsas in the Ṛg-Veda. (Anāsas—without nose). Perhaps their nose was flat; more over they are stated as having dark complexion. So it may be assumed that the Dasyus were Dravidians. They talked a primitive language, and they despised sacrificial religion. They did not worship Gods like Indra and others. Furthermore, they possibly worshipped the Phallus, Śiva, Devi and the like.
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the broad current of popular religion and superstition has infiltrated itself through numberless channels into the higher religion that is presented by the Brāhmin priests, and it may be presumed that the priests were neither able to cleanse their own religious beliefs from the mass of folk with which it was surrounded, nor is it at all likely that they found it in their interest to do so."1 Such are the revenges which the weak of the world have on the strong. The explanation of the miscellaneous character of the Hindu religion, which embraces all the intermediate regions of thought and belief from the wandering fancies of savage superstitions to the highest insight of daring thought, is here. From the beginning, the Aryan religion was expansive, self-developing, and tolerant. It went on accommodating itself to the new forces it met with in its growth. In this can be discerned a refined sense of true humility and sympathetic understanding. The Indian refused to ignore the lower religions and fight them out of existence. He did not possess the pride of the fanatic that his was the one true religion. If a god satisfies the human mind in its own way, it is a form of truth. None can lay hold upon the whole of truth. It can be won only by degrees, partially and provisionally. But they forgot that intolerance was sometimes a virtue. There is such a thing as Gresham's law in religious matters also. When the Aryan and the non-Aryan religions, one refined and the other vulgar, the one good and the other base, met, there was the tendency for the bad to beat the good out of circulation.
II
THEOLOGY
THE religion of the Atharva-Veda is that of the primitive man, to whom the world is full of shapeless ghosts and spirits of death. When he realises his helplessness against the natural forces, the precariousness of his own existence so constantly subject to death, he makes death and disease, failure of monsoon and earthquake, the playground of his fancy.
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1. S.B.E., vol. xliii.
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The world becomes crowned with goblins and gods, and the catastrophes of the world are traced to dissatisfied spirits. When a man falls ill, the magician and not the physician is sent for, and he employs spells to entice the spirit away from the patient.1 The terrific powers could only be appeased by bloody sacrifices, human and animal. The fear of death gave a loose rein to superstition. Madame Ragozin writes: "We have here, as though in opposition to the bright, cheerful pantheon of beneficent deities, so trustingly and gratefully addressed by the Ṛṣis of the Ṛg-Veda, a weird repulsive world of darkly scowling demons, inspiring abject fear such as never sprang from Aryan fancy."2 The religion of the Atharva-Veda is an amalgam of Aryan and non-Aryan ideals. The distinction between the spirit of the Ṛg-Veda and that of the Atharva-Veda is thus described by Whitney: “In the Ṛg-Veda, the gods are approached with reverential awe, indeed, but with love and confidence also; a worship is paid them which exalts the offerer of it; the demons embraced under the general name Rākṣas are objects of horror, whom the gods ward off and destroy; the divinities of the Atharva-Veda are regarded rather with a kind of cringing fear, as powers whose wrath is to be deprecated and whose favor curried; it knows a whole host of imps and hobgoblins, in ranks and classes, and addresses itself to them directly, offering them homage to induce them to abstain from doing harm. The mantra, prayer, which in the older Veda is the instrument of devotion, is here rather the tool of superstition; it wrings from the unwilling hands of the gods the favors which of old their goodwill to men induced them to grant, or by simple magical power obtains the fulfillment of the utterer’s wishes. The most prominent feature of the Atharva is the multitude of incantations which it contains. These are pronounced either by the person who is himself to be benefited or more often by the sorcerer for him, and are directed to the procuring of the greatest variety of desirable ends….
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1. If such a view persisted, it was because it had an element of truth. Modern psychology has come to recognize the power of suggestion as a remedy for the ills of the flesh, specially nervous disorders.
2. Vedic India, pp. 117-118.
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Зинаида Алексеевна Рагозина - Zénaïde Alexeïevna Ragozin (1834-1924), A Russian-American author,
source: en.wikipedia.org, access date: Apr.10, 2026.
William Dwight Whitney, (Feb.9, 1827-Jun.7, 1894), source: dbcs.rutgers.edu, access date: Apr.11, 2026.1.
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There are hymns, too, in which a single rite or ceremony is taken up and exalted, somewhat in the same strain as the Soma in the Pāvamāna hymns of the Ṛg; others of a speculative mystical character are not wanting; yet their number is not so great as might naturally be expected, considering the development which the Hindu religion received in the periods following after that of the primitive Veda. (The Translation will start from here.) It seems in the main that the Atharva is a popular rather than a priestly religion; that, in making the transition from the Vedic to modern times, it forms an intermediate step, rather to the gross idolatries and superstitions of the ignorant mass than to the sublimated pantheism of the Brāhmins.”1 A religion of magic, with its childish reliance on sorcery and witchcraft, takes the place of the purer Vedic religion; the medicine man who knows how to scatter the spirits and control them holds the supreme position. We hear of great ascetics who obtain the mastery of nature by tapas. They reduced by the mortification of the body. Man can participate in divine power by the hidden force of magic. The professors of magic and witchcraft were accepted by the Vedic seers, and their calling was dignified, with the result that magic and mysticism soon became confused. We find people sitting in the midst of five fires, standing on one leg, holding an arm above the head, all for the purpose of commanding the forces of nature and subduing the gods to their will.
While the Atharva-Veda gives us an idea of demonology prevalent among the superstitious tribes of India, it is more advanced in some parts than the Ṛg-Veda and has certain elements in common with the Upaniṣads and the Brāhmaṇas. We have the worship of the Kāla, time; Kāma, or love; Skambha, or support. The greatest of them all is Skambha. He is the ultimate principle, called indiscriminately Prapāpati, Puruṣa and Brahman. He includes all space and time, gods and Vedas and the moral power.2 Rudra is the lord of animals and forms the point of linkage between the Vedic religion and the later Śiva worship.
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1. P.A.O.S., iii. pp. 307-8.
2. See x. 7. 7. 13, 17.
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Śiva in the Ṛg-Veda means only auspicious but is not the name of a god; the Rudra in the Ṛg-Veda is a malignant cattle-destroying deity.1 Here he is, the lord of all cattle, Paśupati. Prāṇa is hailed as a life-giving principle of nature.2 The doctrine of vital forces, which figures so much in later Indian metaphysics, is first mentioned here, and may possibly be a development of the principle of air of the Ṛg-Veda. While the deities of the Ṛg-Veda were of both sexes, the males were more prominent. In the Atharva-Veda, the emphasis is shifted. No wonder in Tāntric philosophies sex becomes the basis. The sacredness of the cow is recognized, and Brahma-loka is mentioned in the Atharva-Veda.3 Hell is known by its proper name. Naraka, with all its horror and tortures,4 is fairly familiar.
Even the magical portion of the Atharva-Veda shows Aryan influence. If magic has to be accepted, the next best thing is to refine it. Bad magic is condemned and good magic encouraged. Many charms make for harmony in family and village life. The barbarous and bloody sacrifices which still persist in unaryanized parts of India are condemned. The old title of the Atharva-Veda, “Atharvāṅgirasaḥ,” shows that it comprised two distinct strata: one of Atharvan and the other of Aṅgiras. The former refers to auspicious practices used for healing purposes.5 The hostile practices belong to the Aṅgirases. The first is medicine, and the second is witchcraft, and the two are mixed up.
The Atharva-Veda, the result of so much compromise, seemed to have had a good deal of trouble in obtaining recognition as a Veda.6 It was regarded with contempt, since its central feature was sorcery. It contributed to the growth of a pessimistic outlook in India. Men cannot believe in the devil and the tempter and yet retain joy in life. To see demons close at hand is to shudder at life
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1. R.V., iv. 3. 6; i. 114. 10.
2. A.V., x. 7.
3. xix. 71. I.
4. xii. 4. 36.
5. Bheṣajani, A.V., xi. 6. 14.
6. In many of the early scriptures, we have only the three Vedas mentioned, R.V., x. 90. 9; v. 7. I; Tait. Up., ii. 2-2. The canonical works of the Buddhists do not mention the Atharva-Veda. At a later date, the Atharva-Veda also acquired the status of a Veda.
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In fairness to the Atharva-Veda, it must be recognized that it helped to prepare the way for the scientific development in India.
III
THE YAJUR-VEDA AND THE BRĀHMAṆAS
In the history of thought creative and critical epochs succeed each other. Periods of rich and glowing faith are followed by those of aridity and artificiality. When we pass from the Ṛg-Veda to the Yajur and the Sāma Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, we feel a change in the atmosphere. The freshness and simplicity of the former give place to the coldness and artificiality of the latter. The spirit of religion is in the background, while its forms assume great importance. The need for prayer-books is felt. Liturgy is developed. The Hymns are taken out of the Ṛg-Veda and arranged to suit sacrificial necessities. The priest becomes the lord. The Yajur-Veda gives the special formulas to be uttered when the altar is to be erected, etc., and the Sāman describes the songs to be chanted at the sacrifice. These Vedas may he discussed along with the Brāhmaṇas since they all describe the sacrificial liturgy. The religion of the Yajur-Veda is a mechanical sacerdotalism. A crowd of priests conducts a vast and complicated system of external ceremonies to which symbolical significance is attached and to the smallest minutiæ of which the greatest weight is given. The truly religious spirit could not survive in the stifling atmosphere of ritual and sacrifice. The religious feeling of the adoration of the ideal and the consciousness of guilt is lacking. Every prayer is couple with a particular rite and aims at securing some material advantage. The formulas of the Yajur-Veda are full of dreary repetitions of petty requests for the goods of life. We cannot draw a sharp distinction between the age of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda and the other Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, since the tendencies which became predominant in the latter were also found in the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda. We can say with some degree of certainty that the mass of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda belongs to an age earlier than that of the Brāhmaṇas.
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IV
THEOLOGY
The Brāhmaṇas, which form the second part of the Vedas, are the ritual textbooks intended to guide the priests through the complicated details of sacrificial rites. The chief of them is the Aitareya and the Śatapatha. Differences of detail in interpretation led to the formation of several schools of the Brāhmaṇas. The period is marked by important changes in the religious evolution, which have permanently affected its future history. The emphasis on sacrifice, the observance of caste and the āśramas, the eternity of the Veda, the supremacy of the priest, all belong to this age.
We may begin by nothing additions made to the Vedic pantheon during the period. Viṣṇu rose in importance in the Yajur-Veda. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa makes him the personification of sacrifice.1 The name Nārāyaṇa also occurs in it, though it is only in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka that two Nārāyaṇa and Viṣṇu are brought into relation. Śiva makes his appearance, and is refered to under different names in the Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa.2 Rudra has now a benignant form and is called Giriśa.3 The Prajāpati of the Ṛg-Veda becomes the chief god and the creator of the world. Viśvakarman is identified with him.4 Monotheism is inculcated. Agni is very important. Brāhmaṇaspati, the lord of prayer, becomes the leader of hymns and the organizer of rites. Brahman in the Ṛg-Veda means a hymn or a prayer addresses to God. From the subjective force which helped the seer to compose a prayer, it came to mean the object prayed for. From being the cause of prayer, we in the Brāhmaṇas the whole universe is regarded as produced from sacrifice, Brahman came to signify the creative principle of the world.5
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1. v.2. 3. 6; v. 4-5. 1; xii. 4.1. 4; civil. 1. 1. 6 and 15.
2. vi. 1-9.
3. See Tait. Saṁhita, iv. 5. i; Vajasaneyi Saṁhitā, ix.
4. Śat. Brāh., viii. 2. 1. 10; viii. 2. 3. 13.
5. There are several passages where Brahman is used in this sense. “Verily in the beginning this universe was the Brahman; it created the gods” (Śat. Brāh., xi. 2. 3. 1. See also x. 6. 3. and Chān. Up., iii. 14.1).
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The religion of the Brāhmaṇas was purely formal. The poetic fire and the heartiness of the Vedic hymns are no more. Prayer comes to mean the muttering of mantras, or the utterance of sacred formulas. Loud petitions were thought necessary to rouse God to action. The words became artificial sounds with occult powers. Nobody could understand the mystery of it all, except the priest who claimed for himself the dignity of a god on earth. The one ambition was to become immortal like the gods, who attained the status by performing sacrifices.1 All are subjected to the influence of sacrifices. Without them, the sun would not rise. We can depose Indra from his throne in heaven if perform a hundred horse-sacrifices. The sacrifices please the gods and profit men. Through them, the gods become the friends of men. The sacrifices were made as a rule for gaining earthly profits and not heavenly bliss. A rigid soul-deadening, commercialist creed based on a contractually motive took the place of the simple devout religion of the Vedas.2 The sacrifices of the Vedic hymns were a superfluous appendage of prayers indicative of true religion but now they occupy the central place. Every act done, every syllable uttered at the ceremony is important. The religion of the Brāhmaṇas became loaded with symbolic subtleties and was ultimately lost in a soulless mechanism of idle rites and pedantries of formalism.
The increasing dominance of the idea of sacrifice helped to exalt the position of the priests. The ṛṣi of the Vedic hymns, the inspired singer of truth, becomes now the possessor of a revealed scripture, the repeater of a magic formula. The simple occupational division of the Aryans into the three classes assumes during the period a hereditary character. The highly elaborate nature of the sacrificial ceremonial demands special training for the priestly office. The patriarchal head of the family could no more conduct the complex and minute system of the sacrificial ceremony. Priesthood became a profession and a hereditary one.
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1. Śat. Brāh., iii. 4. 3; Aitareya Brāh., ii. I. I.
2. “He offers a sacrifice to the gods with the text: ‘Do thou give to me and I will give to thee; do thou bestow on me, and I will bestow on thee’” (Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā, iii. 50. See also Śat. Brāh., ii. 5. 3. 19).
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The priest who possessed the Vedic lore became the accredited intermediaries between gods and men and the dispensers of the divine grace. The yajamāna, or the man for whom rites is performed, stands aside. He is a passive agent supplying men, money and munitions; the priest does the rest for him. Selfishness, with its longing for power, prestige, and enjoyment, pressed its way in and dimmed the luster of the original ideal. Attempts were made to mislead the people about the value of the offerings. A monopoly of functions and offices was secured. The ground was consolidated by the development of an extravagant symbolism. Language was used as if it was given to us to hide our thoughts. Only the priest could know the hidden meaning of things. No wonder the priest claimed for himself a divine divinity. “Verily, there are two kinds of gods; for the gods themselves assuredly are gods, and then the priests who have studied and teach Vedic lore are the human gods.”1
We have here and there priests who seriously declare that they can bring about the death of him who actively employs them, though they have the moral sense to know that such an act is forbidden.2 Another circumstance which further strengthened the priestly class was the necessity for the preservation of the Vedas which the Aryans brought with them, and round which, as we shall see in the sequel, a halo of sanctity grew. The Brāhmin class was entrusted with their preservation. If the Vedas are to survive, the Brāhmin must be true to his vocation. He imposed on himself accordingly severe conditions. “A Brāhmin unlearned in holy writ is extinguished in an instant like dry grass on fire.”3 A Brāhmin should shun worldly honor as he should shun poison. As a Brāhmacārin or student, he must control his passions, wait on his preceptor, and beg for his food; as a householder, he must avoid wealth, speak the truth, lead a virtuous life, and keep himself pure, faithful to the charge committed to their keeping. We need not speak of the wonderful way in which they have preserved the Vedic tradition against all the dangerous accidents of history.
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1. Śat. Brāh., ii. 2. 2. 6; ii. 4. 3. 14.
2. Tait. Saṁhitā, i. 6. 10. 4, and Ait. Brāh., ii. 21. 2.
3. Manu.
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Even to-day we can meet in the streets of Indian cities these walking treasure-houses of Vedic learning. The rigid barriers of the later age are to be traced to historical accidents. In the age of the Brāhmaṇas, there was not much material distinction among the twice-born Aryans. They could all be educated in Vedic knowledge.1 “The sacrifice is like a ship sailing heaven-ward; if there be a sinful priest in it, that one priest would make it sink.”2 So morality was not dismissed as altogether irrelevant. The Brāhmin priests were neither wicked nor stupid. They had their own ideas of duty and righteousness, which they tried to preach to others. They were honest, upright men who obeyed the rules, observed ceremonies, and defended dogmas to the best of their ability.
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1. Manu says: “A twice-born man, a Brāhmin, Kṣatriya or Vaiśya, unlearned in the Vedas, soon falls, even while living, to a condition of Śūdra.” In the Mahābhārata, we read: “The order of Vānaprasthas, of sages who dwell in forests and live on fruits, roots, and air, is prescribed for the three twice-born classes; the order of householders is prescribed for all.”
2. Śat. Brāh., iv. 2. 5. 10.
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