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Rh came to be invested with mysterious power to secure for the donor his heart's desires. Words specifically arranged and recited in a specific manner were believed to have magical potency and were supposed to heal disease, to win the favour of gods, to rout the demons, to frustrate the evil scheming of enemies and to cause them harm. The power of sacrifices was equally great. The gods, it is said, were originally mortals and dreaded death, but later won immortality by sacrifices. Sacrifice, it is added, enables the Brahmans to compel the gods to do their will. Ritualism thus rose to a pre-eminent position. Burnt offerings and sacrifices were believed to procure earthly gifts and heavenly bliss and to raise the estate of the soul in the next world. Exhortations for moral life continued to be made, yet elaborate ritual and animal sacrifices became the central feature of religion.

Such elaborate ceremonies performed and sacrifices offered by a specialized priestly class satisfied the religious needs of the masses of people. The chanting of the sacred formulas, the sound of bells and conches, the odour of the burning incense and of burnt offerings, descended soothingly upon the spirits of the vast numbers of people and appeased their innate human hunger for religion.

But there were some persons of a deep devotional disposition whom dreary ritualism and magical incantations which superseded a religion of morality, did not satisfy and they yearned for higher personal religious experience. They longed for passionately plunging into the life of the spirit. Such persons aspired to live religion in their own persons, to approximate the object of their devotion, to see their God face to face, to commune with him, and to lay bare their souls before him. They aimed at leading the life of the spirit, but the spirit was encased in a fleshy frame, and the flesh seemed to them to be antagonizing the spirit. Beneath their calm exterior, they often experienced the tempest raging within and their inner world torn by the conflict. Evil thoughts and vicious passions forced themselves into the mind and tortured it. Their one paramount function, they concluded, was to quell the tumult of their physical nature, before they could embark upon spiritual progress. They betook themselves to ascetic practices to drill and discipline, control and subdue their unruly bodies. They left their homes and retired to the forests. They practised various kinds of austerities,