Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/58

 312 OWEN BERKELEY-HILL

masquerading as a metaphysical Spirit (Atman) — * a divine afflatus * which permeated and breathed through all material things. This Atman received the name of Brahman, (nominative neuter of Brahma, from the root 'brih', to expand). Such was the fundamental doctrine of Brahmanism, but it soon became a more complex system and Monier Williams! divides it up into, (i) Ritualistic, (ii) Philosophical (iii) Mythological or Polytheistic, and (iv) Nomistic.

Ritualistic Brahmanism has for its special bible the sacred treatise, called Brahmanas, which are added to the Rig-veda. According to Farquhar, * during the time when the Brahmans were coming into being the first order of hermits arose. These men gave up all business of the world and practised austerities [tapas), sacrifice and meditation. As early as the Vedic creation-myths the creator of the universe is said to have prepared himself for his work by the practice ot 'tapas'. In this word, says Deussen,' 'the ancient idea of the "heat" which serves to promote the incubation of the egg of the universe blends with the ideas of the exertion, fatigue and self-renunciation, by which means the creator is transmuted into the universe which he proposes to create'. Ritualistic Brahmanism saw the development of the idea of the great efficacy of sacrifice and with this notion there came into being an intricate ritual. Every ceremonial rite had to be performed with pedantic accuracy which, as Ernest Jones* has pointed out, is another well recognised trait of an anal-erotic complex. The whole course of prayer,'praise, ritual and oblation lasted often for weeks, sometimes for years, and could then only be carried out by sixteen different classes of skilled priests.

With the rise of Philosophical Brahmanism there followed a reaction from the pedantic ritual of the Brahmans with a return to an insistence on the importance of knowledge of the one universally-diffused Spiritual essence (Brahman) and a concommittant feeling that this purely spiritual knowledge made sacrificial cere- monies useless. The special book of this phase of Brahmanism is the Upanishads and it is in them that we encounter the quint- essence of Hindu metaphysical speculation. In the Upanishads the anal-erotic complexes find gratification in a striving after perfection,

' Monier Williams: op. cit.

' J. N. Farquhar: op. cit, p. 29.


 * Deussen: The Religion and Philosophy of India, p. 66.


 * Ernest Jones: op. cit