keynote of nature; in his wild dances they will see imaged forth the everlasting throb of cosmic existence; to his terrors they will find a reverse of infinite love and grace. The horrors of Rudra the deadly are the mantle of Śiva the gracious. Thus, while the god's character in its lower phases remains the same as before, claiming the worship of the basest classes of mankind, and nowise rising to a higher level, it develops powerfully and fruitfully in one aspect which attracts grave and earnest imaginations. The Muni, the contemplative ascetic, penetrates in meditation through the terrors of Śiva's outward form to the god's inward love and wisdom, and beholds in him his own divine prototype. And so Śiva comes to be figured in this nobler aspect as the divine Muni, the supreme saint and sage. [Footnote 18: For the original mortality of the gods see TS. VII. iv. 2, 1, ŚB. X. iv. 33 f., XI. i. 2, 12, ii. 3, 6; for their primitive non-differentiation, TS. VI. vi. 8, 2, ŚB. IV. v. 4, 1-4.] [Footnote 19: Cf. e.g. KB. III. 4 & 6, VI. 2-9, and Āp. ŚS. VI. xiv. 11-13.] While the worship of Śiva 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 Ṛigvēdic 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.