Hinduism / by Monier Williams.

  • Monier Monier-Williams
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hinduism / by Monier Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the dominion of heaven. Hence, the very gods for whose nourishment and propitiation sacrifices were intended, were thought to be jealous of over-zeal dis- played by pious individuals in multiplying sacrificial rites, and were even said to put impediments in their way. Nevertheless, in spite of such supposed oppo- sition to excessive piety, the number of sacrificers and sacrifices of all kinds, increased in India. In fact, for the whole Brahmana period of Hinduism (probably from 800 to 500 B.C.), the need of expiation and propitiatory offerings through the immolations and vicarious suffering of animals remained a central doctrine of Brahmanism. Thousands of animals were killed every day. The land was saturated with blood. The greater the number of the sacrifices and the more elaborate the ritual, the greater the need for a more complete organization of priests. In this manner the whole Brahmanical sacrificial system, of which the Brahmana portion of the Veda is the expression and exponent, was overdone. People became wearied and disgusted with sacrifices, sacrificers, and sacrificing priests. Then, about five centuries before our era, the reformer Buddha appeared, and about contempor- aneously with him various Brahman sages, stimulated by his example and perhaps by that of others who preceded him,1 thought out what are called the or- thodox systems of Hindu philosophy. These reform- ing sages found ready listeners when they began to 1 There is no reason for supposing that the Buddha was the first freethinker and philosopher that India produced. He him- self taught that other Buddhas had preceded him.
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