The Brahmans occupied themselves very earnestly with the study of revelation, with the Veda, and with meditation on the highest being. If the first was the peculiar task of the schools of the Brahmans, the second was the essential duty of the anchorites in the forest. Moreover, it was advantageous for the teaching of the people to interpolate the new religion into the old Epos, and there also to exalt the acts of the great saints above the acts of the ancient heroes. We have already referred to the contradiction existing between the new doctrine and the Veda, on which it was founded, and which it set forth as a divine revelation. The invocations and prayers of the Veda arose out of the circle of different tribes, and from different dates; in their origin and tradition they proceeded from distinct races of priests. They were due to a conception wholly at variance with that of the Brahmans. How could these contradictions be removed? The contradiction between old and new was aggravated by numerous differences in the ritual. Along with the Veda the Brahmans regarded the sayings and conduct of the holy men of old, the great saints, as sufficient authorities. But the ritual was not the same in all the races of the Brahmans; and even customs and tradition had, as we have seen, a claim in the eyes of the Brahmans. Every priestly school, or family, appealed in its ritual to the custom or word of the supposed progenitor, or to some other great saint. In order to fix the correct ceremonial of the sacrifice, the true ritual for purification, expiation, and penance, amid such varieties of practice, it was necessary to go back to the Veda. But in the Veda nothing was found on the greater part of the questions at issue, and only contradictory statements on others. Which was the true ritual, the form pleasing to the gods and therefore efficacious? Which were the decisive passages in the Veda, and what was their true explanation? To the difficult task of bringing the Veda into harmony with the idea of Brahman, and the system of castes, and finding a proof for both in the Veda, in which castes and Brahman as the world-soul were unknown, was added the further difficulty of establishing the ritual so securely, as to leave no doubt about the practice of it, and to make it quite certain what liturgy was to be applied in each case, at every act. Owing to the Indian belief in the mystic power of the sacrifice and each single operation in it, this question was of very great importance. The sacrifice was invalid unless the ritual given by revelation or by the great priests of ancient times was used in it. From these questions and investigations rose commentaries on the Vedas;--the Brahmanas, which in part are still preserved to our times, the first compositions of the Indians in prose. They are reflections and rules of a liturgical and theological nature, and proceed on a plan somewhat of the following kind. After mentioning the rite and the sacrifice in question, the