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The Vedic cult absorbed a good deal of Hinduism, for instance the worship of Fate, [16] just as Hinduism absorbed a good deal of Vedic cult. Nor were the popular works obnoxious to the priest. In the Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad[17] the Itih[=a]sas and Pur[=a]nas (fore-runners of the epic) are already reckoned as a fifth Veda, being recognized as a Veda almost as soon as was the Atharvan, [18] which even in Manu is still called merely 'texts of Atharvan and Angiras' (where texts of Bhrigu might as well have been added). Just as the latter work is formally recognized, and the use of its magical formulas, if employed for a good purpose, is enjoined in epic[19] and law (e.g. Manu, xi. 33), so the Hinduistic rites crept gradually into the foreground, pushing back the soma cult. Idols are formally recognized as venerable by the law-makers;[20] even before their day the 'holy pool,' which we have shown to be so important to Hinduism, is accepted by Brahmanism.[21] Something, too, of the former's catholicity is apparent in the cult at an early date, only to be suppressed afterwards. Thus in (=A]it. Br. II. 19, the slave's son shares the sacrifice; and the slave drinks soma in one of the halfBrahmanical, half-popular festivals.[22] Whether human sacrifice, sanctioned by some modern sects, is aught but pure Hinduism, Çivaism, as affected by the cult of the wildtribes, it is hard to say. At any rate, such sacrifices in the Brahmanic world were obsolete long before one finds them in Hinduism. Of Buddhistic, Brahmanic, and Hinduistic reciprocity we have spoken already, but we may add one curious fact, namely, that the Buddhism of Civaism is marked by its holy numbers. The Brahmanic Rudra with eight names[23] and eight forms[24] is clearly Çivaite, and the numbers are as clearly Buddhistic[25] Thus, as Feer has shown, Buddhist hells are eight, sixteen, etc, while the Brahmanic hells are seven, twenty-one, etc. Again, the use of the rosary was originally Çivaite, not Buddhisttc;[26] and Buddha in Bali, where they live amicably side by side, is regarded as Çiva's brother. [27]
Two things result from this interlocking of sectarian Brahmanism with other sects. First, it is impossible to say in how far each influenced the other; and, again, the antiquity of special ideas is rendered doubtful. A Brahmanic idea can pretty safely be allotted to its first period, because the literature is large enough to permit the assumption that it will appear in literature not much later than it obtains. But a sectarian idea may go back
