Indian culture is developed to a high degree, and it is imposing, but its Philosophy is identical with its Religion, and the objects to which attention is devoted in Philosophy are the same as those which we find brought forward in Religion. Hence the holy books or Vedas also form the general groundwork for Philosophy. We know the Vedas tolerably well; they contain principally prayers addressed to the many representations of God, direction as to ceremonials, offerings, &c. They are also of the most various periods; many parts are very ancient, and others have taken their origin later, as, for instance, that which treats of the service of Vishnu. The Vedas even constitute the basis for the atheistical Indian philosophies; these, too, are not wanting in gods, and they pay genuine attention to the Vedas. Indian Philosophy thus stands within Religion just as scholastic Philosophy stands within Christian dogmatism, having at its basis and presupposing the doctrines of the church. Mythology takes the form of incarnation or individualization, from which it might be thought that it would be opposed to Philosophy in its universality and ideality; incarnation is not, however, here taken in so definite a sense, for almost everything is supposed to partake of it, and the very thing that seems to define itself as individuality falls back directly within the mist of the universal. The idea of the Indians more appropriately expressed, is that there is one universal substance which may be laid hold of in the abstract or in the concrete, and out of which everything takes its origin. The summit of man’s attainment is that he as consciousness should make himself identical with the substance, in Religion by means of worship, offerings, and rigid acts of expiation, and in Philosophy through the instrumentality of pure thought.