Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/314

 our European theatres. Religion is becoming something more than a spontaneous worship offered up by the father of the family, who is at once its prophet, priest, and king; the poet helps the performer of the sacrifice, the singer recites the poet's studied prayer; and the prologue—which reminds us of the religious prologues to the much later Indian dramas—the dialogue, and epilogue, even if they are quite unconnected with the development of the Indian theatre, are at least signs of a literary class. The rise of this literary class forms the second great period into which the evolution of Indian life may be divided.

The earliest Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian Aryans still to the north of the Khaibar Pass, in Kábul; the later bring them as far as the Ganges, and "their victorious advance eastwards through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings almost step by step." In the train of conquest came the development of a higher social organisation than that of the pastoral communities which had been attracted by the steady water-supply of the Panjab, and had settled in scattered groups of husbandmen. In these old Aryan colonies of the Panjab division of mental and manual labour had been wanting; "each housefather had been husbandman, warrior, and priest. But by degrees certain gifted families, who composed the Vedic hymns or learned them off by heart, were always chosen by the king to perform the great sacrifices. In this way probably the priestly caste sprang up." Fortunate warriors or companions of the king, too, like the comitatus of German tribes, received grants of conquered territory which the non-Aryans cultivated as serfs; hence the warrior-caste, called Rajputs or Kshattriyas—the latter term meaning "of the royal stock"—and the Sudras or non-Aryans reduced by conquest to