This is what is called Vedânta, the Veda-end, the end of the Veda, and this is the religion or the philosophy, whichever you like to call it, that has lived on from about 500 B.C. to the present day. If the people of India can be said to have now any system of religion at all--apart from their ancestral sacrifices and their _S_râddhas, and apart from mere caste-observances--it is to be found in the Vedânta philosophy, the leading tenets of which are known, to some extent in every village.[342] That great revival of religion, which was inaugurated some fifty years ago by Ram-Mohun Roy, and is now known as the Brahma-Samâ_g_, under the leadership of my noble friend Keshub Chunder Sen, was chiefly founded on the Upanishads, and was Vedântic in spirit. There is, in fact, an unbroken continuity between the most modern and the most ancient phases of Hindu thought, extending over more than three thousand years. To the present day India acknowledges no higher authority in matters of religion, ceremonial, customs, and law than the _Veda_, and so long as India is India, nothing will extinguish that ancient spirit of Vedântism which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth, and pervades in various forms the prayers even of the idolater, the speculations of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar. For purely practical reasons therefore--I mean for the very practical object of knowing something of the secret springs which determine the character, the thoughts and deeds of the lowest as well as of the highest among the people in India--an acquaintance with their religion, which is founded on the Veda, and with their philosophy, which is founded on the Vedânta, is highly desirable. It is easy to make light of this, and to ask, as some statesmen have asked, even in Europe, What has religion, or what has philosophy, to do with politics? In India, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, and notwithstanding the indifference on religious matters so often paraded before the world by the Indians themselves, religion, and philosophy too, are great powers still. Read the account that has lately been published of two native statesmen, the administrators of two first-class states in Saurâsh_t_ra, Junâgadh, and Bhavnagar, Gokulaji and Gauri_s_ankara,[343] and you will see whether the Vedânta is still a moral and a political power in India or not.