During the Later Vedic and in the Post-Buddhist periods far-reaching changes were being introduced in the religious outlook of the Indo- Aryans. The Vedic religion was no doubt held in honour, but its character was being gradually transformed.
Sacrifices were still being performed with zest by kings and by common men with the help of the priests for particular ends in view, but many of the intellectuals of the day were getting more and more interested in the solution of problems connected with knowledge about the Absolute.
The Aranyaka and the Upanishad literature, an authoritative and substantial part of which was associated with one or the other of the different branches (sakha) of the principal Vedas, was mainly concerned with such topics as the interpretation of the nature of the various sacrifices, and the mystery of Brahman and Atman and not with the actual ritualism of the Vedas and the Brahmanas.
A dim perception of the one unifying principle pervading and at the same time transcending the universe can be traced in some of the Late Vedic texts and in some Brahmana passages, but it is only in the Upanishads, the Vedanta, i.e. the end or acme of the Vedas, that one finds the ardent efforts of thinkers to throw light on the nature of the universe and the Universal Principle.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Here also are found the fundamental doctrines of Hinduism, the law of karma and its necessary concomitants, the belief in the transmigration of soul and in the misery inherent in mortal existence, caused by the continuous chain of births and rebirths. Later religious reformers and founders of creeds like the Sakyamuni Buddha and Vardhamana Mahavira, though severe critics of sacrifices and ritualism, were compelled to assign an important position to some of these newly introduced theories of the Brahmanical seers.
The religious outlook of the times when these reformers flourished, and even long before them, was thus of a nature indicative of a critical frame of mind in different classes of Indians with whom the old orthodox form of sacrificial religion of the Vedas did not find favour.
When the Buddha and Mahavira flourished there were religious leaders like Kasyapa, Katyayana, Sanjaya, Mas- kari Ghosala and others, many of whom seem to have been severe critics of Vedic sacrificialism. Side by side with the followers of these independent leaders and reformers there were many among the general mass of people, some of whom were animists, while others were worshippers of particular gods and goddesses.
It is against this background of religious ferment that the origin of some of the principal Brahmanical sects can be traced. The most important element that operated to bring these sects about is bhakti, primarily the loving adoration of some persons by others, but secondarily the deep, affectionate and mystic devotion for some personal deity who is the principal object of worship to his devotees (bhaktas).
ADVERTISEMENTS:
These exclusive worshippers of particular deities were grouped under different heads which came gradually to be described as one or the other of the sects. The divinities round whom the sects developed were not recruited from the orthodox Vedic pantheon, but from quite a different source. Indra, Prajapati, Mitra, Varuna, Yama, Agni and a host of others could not serve the purpose of sectarian deities, and many of them were relegated to the minor position of guardians of quarters (dikpalas).
Some of the Vedic gods, again, like Vishnu, Surya and Rudra, and Brahmanic deities like the cosmic god Narayana, came to be merged in the composite cult-deities of different sects. In some cases this merger was important for the sects themselves, and some of the latter came to be designated, optionally at first, but more constantly at a later period, by the names of the Vedic counterparts of their cult pictures (the part played by Vishnu in the Bhagavata or Pancharatra cult, later known as Vaishnavism).
The originals of the sectarian gods were either human heroes like Vasudeva Krishna, the son of Devaki, Sakyamuni Buddha and Mahavira, or mythological beings like Siva (Rudra-Siva), or the yakshas and nagas, e.g., Manibhadra, Purnabhadra, Dadhikarna, Tak- shaka and others, and such goddesses as Uma, Haimavati, Ambika, Durga-Parvati and Vindhyavasini.
The early Buddhist works on many occasions refer to the various kinds of worship prevailing in India, especially in its central and eastern parts, at the time when the Buddha was living. Asoka significantly remarks in his Rock Edict XII that men are usually associated with one or the other sect, and that a tolerant monarch does not encourage the extolling of one’s own sect to the disparagement of others.