In my recent work on Brhmanism I have traced the progress of Indian religious thought through three successive stagescalled by me Vedism, Brhmanism, and Hindismthe last including the three subdivisions of aivism, Vaishavism, and ktism. Furthermore I have attempted to prove that these systems are not really separated by sharp lines, but that each almost imperceptibly shades off into the other.
I have striven also to show that a true Hind of the orthodox school is able quite conscientiously to accept all these developments of religious belief. He holds that they have their authoritative exponents in the successive bibles of the Hind religion, namely, (1) the four Vedasig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sma-veda, Atharva-vedaand the Brhmaas; (2) the Upanishads; (3) the Law-booksespecially that of Manu; (4) the Bhakti-stras, including the Rmyaa, the Mah-bhrata, the Purasespecially the Bhgavata-puraand the Bhagavad-gt; (5) the Tantras.
The chief works under these five heads represent the principal periods of religious development through which the Hind mind has passed.
Thus, in the first place, the hymns of the Vedas and the ritualism of the Brhmaas represent physiolatry or the worship of the personified forces of naturea form of religion which ultimately became saturated with sacrificial ideas and with ceremonialism and asceticism. Secondly, the Upanishads represent the pantheistic conceptions which terminated in philosophical Brhmanism. Thirdly, the Law-books represent caste-rules and domestic usages. Fourthly, the Rmyaa, Mah-bhrata, and Puras represent the principle of personal devotion to the personal gods, iva, Vishu, and their manifestations; and fifthly, the Tantras represent the perversion of the principle of love to polluting and degrading practices disguised under the name of religious rites. Of these five phases of the Hind religion probably the first three only prevailed when Buddhism arose; but I shall try to make clear hereafter that Buddhism, as it developed, accommodated itself to the fourth and even ultimately to the fifth phase, admitting the Hind gods into its own creed, while Hindism also received ideas from Buddhism.