Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/61

 į The Veda 45 are distracted by the licenses and restrictions that go with poetic form. Secondly, the Brāhmanas are an almost inexhaustible mine for the history of the sacrifice, religious practices, and the institutions of priesthood. These institutions in time became so systematic and formidable as to make the names Brahman and Brahmanism typical everywhere for priest and priesthood. Thirdly, the Brāhmana texts not only describe and expound the sacrifice, but they illustrate and enliven it by numerous stories and legends. While engaged in expounding the technicalities of the ritual, they at the same time unconsciously supplement the poetic Vedas. The Hebrew Talmud interrupts the hair-splitting, logic-chopping expositions of its ritual Hallacha, by picking from time to time rare flowers from the garden of its Haggada, or legendary lore. The Brahmanas no less make drafts upon the past and present of the great storehouse of myths and stories that India has cherished from the beginning of her time. The poetic value of many of these stories may be judged from the fact that they remain stock themes for the Hindu poets of later times. Here we find, first of all, the story of the flood, wonderfully analogous to the flood legends of all Western Asia, and especially the account of the