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The Beginnings of Hindu TheOSOphy 221

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Garbe is not at all an admirer of Brahman civilisation; on more than one oc—

cate of this view.

casion has he poured out the vials of his just wrath against the intolerable pretensions and cruel- ties which the Brahmans have practised during the period of their ascendancy in India through several rnilleniums. But not content with that, he believes that the Brahmans were not only bold bad men, but also that they were too stupid to have worked their Way from the sandy wastes of ritualism to the green summits where grows the higher thought of India. For centuries the Brahmans were engaged in ex cogitating sacriﬁce after sacriﬁce, and haireplitting deﬁnitions and explanations of senseless ritualistic hocus—pocus. “All at once,” says Professor Garbe, “lofty thought appears upon the scene. To be sure, even then the traditional god-lore, sacriﬁcial lore, and folk-lore are not rejected, but the spirit is no longer satisﬁed with the cheap mysteries that surround the sacriﬁcial altar. A passionate desire to solve the riddle of the universe and its relation to the own self holds the mind captive; nothing less will satisfy henceforth.”

Parts of this observation of Professor Garbe are correct, nay even familiar. But not every part, it seems to me. Having in mind Yajnavalk'ya and Uddalaka Aruni of the Upanishads, or Qankara and