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( XXI )
conse
sophy, as distinguished from the six atheistic schools beginning with that of Charvaka. Now with the settlement of the final authority of the Vedas, its ritualism became a mercilessly dominant religion for sometime, somuch so that the priestclass seemed to be in the sole possession of the Key to Heaven! And In quence sincerity which is the soul of all religiousity almost disappeared from the people yielding place to downright hypocrisy and dry formalism. The Kshatriya kings and the princes could not stand to this want of sincerity in the people and to the religious monopoly in the hands of the Brahmans. They entered a protest against the same in the form of Vedantic militarism finding exprssions in such great Upanishadic declarations as, 'Brahman is Atman' 'That Thou art,': 'That I am' in reality there is no essential difference between one soul and another. All are One and the Goal of all is Freedom, which cannot be reached by the weak and the powerless. So all conventions, all privileges must go. Thus ensued an era of war between the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas. The enmity and implacable
F
