[The Religions of India by Edward Washburn Hopkins]@TWC D-Link bookThe Religions of India CHAPTER IX 11/158
It is true, also, that occasionally there is a revolting contempt for those people who are not of especial service to the priest.
There are now two godlike aristocrats, the priest and the noble.
The 'people' are regarded as only fit to be the "food of the nobility." In the symbolical language of the time the bricks of the altar, which are consecrated, are the warrior caste; the fillings, in the space between the bricks, are not consecrated; and these "fillers of space" are "the people" (_Cat.Br_.VI.1.2.
25). Yet is religion in these books not dead, but sleeping; to wake again in the Upanishads with a fuller spiritual life than is found in any other pre-Christian system.
Although the subject matter of the Br[=a]hmanas is the cult, yet are there found in them numerous legends, moral teachings, philosophical fancies, historical items, etymologies and other adventitious matter, all of which are helpful in giving a better understanding of the intelligence of the people to whom is due all the extant literature of the period.
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