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and moral virtues are enumerated as such for all; and he slips in mental concentration as a virtue for the ascetic, meaning to include all the virtues he knows.
A few further illustrations from that special code which has won for itself a preeminent name, 'the law-book of Manu, '[26] will give in epitome the popular religion as taught to the masses; withal even better than this is taught in the S[=u]tras. For Father Manu's law-book, as the Hindus call it, is a popular Ç[=a]stra or metrical[27] composite of law and religion, which reflects the opinion of Brahmanism in its geographical stronghold, whereas the S[=u]tras emanate from various localities, north and south. To Manu there is but one Holy Land, the Kurus' plain and the region round-about it (near Delhi).
The work takes us forward in time beyond even the latest S[=ustras, but the content is such as to show that formal Brahmanism in this latest stage still keeps to its old norm and to Brahmanic models.
It deserves therefore to be examined with care from several points of view if one would escape from the belief of the philosopher to the more general teaching. In this popular religion all morality is conditioned by the castes, [28] which is true also to a certain degree of the earlier Sutras, but the evil fruit of this plant is not there quite so ripe as it is in the later code. The enormity of all crimes depends on who commits them, and against whom they are committed. The three upper castes alone have religious privileges. The lowest caste, outcasts, women, and diseased persons are not allowed to hear the holy texts or take part in ceremonies.[29] As to the rites, they are the inherited ones, sacrifices to gods, offerings to Manes and spirits, and all the ceremonies of house and individual, as explained above; with especial and very minute rules of observance for each of the four stadia of a priest's life.[30] There is no hint in any of this of the importance of the knowledge of the [=a]tm[=a). But in their proper place the rules of morality and the higher philosophical views are taught. The doctrine of re-birth is formally stated, and the attainment of the world of Brahm[=a] (brahma) by union of ceremonies and knowledge is inculcated. The ascetic should seek, by meditation, to go to Brahm[=a] (or brahma) for when he is utterly indifferent, then, both here and after