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 abode the power of the Brahmans—a power that enslaved the souls of low-caste men. These latter, descendants of the conquered peoples, raised awed eyes from the dust in adoration of the priest-princes, at whose bidding they toiled, and who ordered for them their lives. They existed only in the shadow cast upon the earth by these demigods who, to them, were a divine mystery made manifest to human sight. By serving, obeying, and honouring them, thus, and thus only, might they do distant and vicarious reverence to the Shining Ones and so, acquiring merit, might win at last, in some yet far-off incarnation, to more honourable estate. The supreme patience, which is the very soul of Asia—the patience which so unwearyingly awaits the fulfilment of a promise vain and remote-steeled them to endure. Wherefore, like cattle, they bowed unresisting necks to the Brahman's yoke, and their backs to ever-increasing burdens.

And the burdens increased apace.

The people prostrated themselves in adoration before the demigods who ruled them; what time the demigods themselves rested not from their frantic efforts to propitiate the Deities from whom their divinity was derived.

Ere ever the straggling mass of wooden buildings with roofs of thatch and tiles—which was their capital city—had taken form, already they had begun to construct, in honour of the High Gods, temples of enduring stone. One by one