Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/214

 CHAPTER VIII

THE BRĀHMAṆAS

(Circa 800-500 B.C.)

period in which the poetry of the Vedic Saṃhitās arose was followed by one which produced a totally different literary type—the theological treatises called Brāhmaṇas. It is characteristic of the form of these works that they are composed in prose, and of their matter that they deal with the sacrificial ceremonial. Their main object being to explain the sacred significance of the ritual to those who are already familiar with the sacrifice, the descriptions they give of it are not exhaustive, much being stated only in outline or omitted altogether. They are ritual text-books, which, however, in no way aim at furnishing a complete survey of the sacrificial ceremonial to those who do not know it already. Their contents may be classified under the three heads of practical sacrificial directions (vidhi), explanations (arthavāda), exegetical, mythological, or polemical, and theological or philosophical speculations on the nature of things (upanishad). Even those which have been preserved form quite an extensive literature by themselves; yet many others must have been lost, as appears from the numerous names of and quotations from Brāhmaṇas unknown to us occurring in those which are extant. They reflect the spirit of an age in which