[Footnote 18: For the original mortality of the gods see TS. VII. iv. 2, 1, SB. X. iv. 33 f., XI. i. 2, 12, ii. 3, 6; for their primitive non-differentiation, TS. VI. vi. 8, 2, SB. IV. v. 4, 1-4.]
[Footnote 19: Cf. e.g. KB. III. 4 & 6, VI. 2-9, and Ap. SS. VI. xiv. 11-13.]
While the worship of Siva is slowly making its way into the heart of Brahmanic ritualism, another movement is at work which is gradually drawing many of the keenest intellects among the Brahmans away from the study of ritual towards an idealistic philosophy which views all ritual with indifference. Its literature is the Upanishads.
The passing of the Rigvedic age has left to the Brahmans a doctrinal legacy, which may be thus restated: a single divine principle through a prototypic sacrifice has given birth to the universe, and all the processes of cosmic nature are controlled by sacrifices founded upon that primeval sacrifice. In short, the ritual symbolises and in a sense actually _is_ the whole cosmic process. The ritual implies both the knowledge of the law of sacrifice and the proper practice of that law, _both understanding and works_. This is the standpoint of the orthodox ritualist. But there has also arisen a new school among the Brahmans, that of the Aupanishadas, which has laid down for its first doctrine that _works are for the sake of understanding_, that the practice of ritual is of value only as a help to the mystic knowledge of the All. But here they have not halted; they have gone a further step, and declared that _knowledge once attained, works become needless_. Some even venture to hint that perhaps the highest knowledge is not to be reached through works at all. And the knowledge that the Aupanishadas seek is of Brahma, and _is_ Brahma.
The word _brahma_ is a neuter noun, and in the Rig-veda it means something that can only be fully translated by a long circumlocution. It may be rendered as "the power of ritual devotion"; that is to say, it denotes the mystic or magic force which is put forth by the poet-priest of the Rig-veda when he performs the rites of sacrifice with appropriate chanting of hymns--in short, ritual magic. This mystic force the Rigvedic poets have represented in personal form as the god Brihaspati, in much the same way as they embodied the spirit of the sacrifice in Vishnu. Their successors, the orthodox ritualists of the Brahmanas, have not made much use of this term; but sometimes they speak of Brahma as an abstract first principle, the highest and ultimate source of all being, even of Prajapati (Samav. B. I. 1, Gop. B. I. i. 4); and when they speak of Brahma they think of him not as a power connected with religious ceremony but as a supremely transcendent and absolutely unqualified and impersonal First Existence. But the school of the Aupanishadas has gone further. Seeking through works mystic knowledge as the highest reality, they see in Brahma the perfect knowledge. To them the absolute First Existence is also transcendently full and unqualified Thought. As knowledge is power, the perfect Power is perfect Knowledge.