In reading the Brâhmaṅas and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their times. Thought was their real life: of that they have given a full record, imperfect only in chronology, for though their speculations are often set forth in a narrative form, we hear surprisingly little about contemporary events. The territory familiar to these works is the western part of the modern United Provinces with the neighbouring districts of the Panjab, the lands of the Kurus, Pancâlas, and Matsyas, all in the region of Agra and Delhi, and further east Kâśi (Benares) with Videha or Tirhut. Gândhâra was known[201] but Magadha and Bengal are not mentioned. Even in the Buddha's lifetime they were still imperfectly brahmanized. What we know of the period 800 to 600 B.C. is mostly due to the Brahmans, and many Indianists have accepted their view, that they were then socially the highest class and the repository of religion and culture. But it is clear from Buddhist writings (which, however, are somewhat later) that this pre-eminence was not unchallenged[202], and many admissions in the Brâhmaṅas and Upanishads indicate that some centuries before the Buddha the Kshatriyas held socially the first rank and shared intellectual honours with the Brahmans. Janaka, king of Videha[203], and Yâjñavalkya, the Brahman, meet on terms of mutual respect and other Kshatriyas, such as Ajâtaśatru of Kâśi and Pravâhaṅa Jaivali are represented as instructing Brahmans, and the latter in doing so says "this knowledge did not go to any Brahman before but belonged to the Kshatriyas alone[204]." But as a profession theology, both practical and speculative, was left to the Brahmans.