Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/219

Rh

While in these scattered allusions we detect materials for the construction of the Puranic mythology of a later day, we also find in the Brahmanic and Epic Period occasional traces of that disbelief in rites and creeds which broke out at a later day in the Buddhist revolution. The Tandya Brahmana of the Sama-Veda contains the Vratya-stomas, by which the Vratyas, or Aryans not living according to the Brahmanical system, could get admission into that community, and some of these heretics are thus described: " They drive in open chariots of war, carry bows and lances, wear turbans, robes bordered with red and having fluttering ends, shoes, and sheepskins folded double; their leaders are distinguished by brown robes and silver neck-ornaments; they pursue neither agriculture nor commerce; their laws are in a state of confusion; they speak the same language as those who have received Brahmanical consecration, but nevertheless call what is easily spoken hard to pronounce."