[288] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 166, 416, 417. The ritual for the consecration of kings, according to the Aitareya-Brahmana, is given in Colebrooke, "Asiatic Researches," 8, 408 ff. Cf. Schlegel, "Ind. Bibliothek," 1, 431, and Lassen, "Alterth." 2, 246, 427. [289] Grimm, "Rechtsalterthümer," s. 156 ff. [290] Manu, 3, 150 ff. [291] Manu, 8, 229-260. [292] Mill, "History of British India," 2, 66. Montgom. Martin, "Political Constitution of the Anglo-Eastern Empire," p. 271. [293] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 242, 245, 247. CHAPTER VII. THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY. The book of the law was the canon of pure conduct, and the holy order of the state and society, which the Brahmans held up before the princes and nations on the Ganges. They made no attempt to get the throne into their own hands; they had no thought of giving an effective political organisation to their caste; they did not seek to set up a hierarchy which should take its place by the side of the state, or rise superior to it, and thus secure such obedience for their demands among clergy and laity as would ensure the carrying out of the commands of the book. For this the Brahmans had not sufficient practical or political capacity; they were too deeply plunged in their hair-splitting and fanciful speculations, in their ceremonial and their penances. They were content with demanding the place of assessor or president at the funeral feasts in the families of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the influence of which position went far beyond their expectations; with recommending members of their order as ministers, judges, and magistrates to the king; with requiring that he should protect the Brahmans as his sons, provide for their support, be greatly liberal to them, abstain from imposing taxes on learned Brahmans, and maintain their advantages and rights against the other classes. If a Brahman had no heirs, the king must not take his property, but present it to the members of the order, and give to a Brahman any treasure which he may happen to find. In the epic poetry an exaggerated attempt is made to bring this liberality plainly before the mind: the Brahmans acquire hundreds of thousands of cows, treasures without end, and the whole earth.[294] But all these commands are only wishes; as a fact the Brahmans had no other status as against the kings than the respect which their educational knowledge of the doctrine, their acquaintance with the forms and ritual of sacrifice, gave them: they had only the moral influence which their dogma and their exhortations could exercise on the heart of the king, the power of the faith which they could excite in their disciples. Their power, as we have seen, they knew how to support by their views on the merit acquired by the king in this and the next world by reason of his good works towards the Brahmans, by the fear of the punishments in hell and the regenerations, with which the book of the law so liberally threatens all who despise Brahmans.