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Preliminary Considerations
India were, especially in their formative phases, indistinguishable from one another.
Sometimes it is suggested that they are understandable only in terms of the earliest phase of the Indian tradition, now referred to as Brahmanism. But it should be pointed out here that the difficulties encountered in the conceptualisation of Brahmanism would go to show that a stage even previous to Brahmanism should be visualised. For, by considering the post-Vedic era (which exhibits the growth of religious and philosophical ideas under the overarching authority of the Veda) also as Brahmanism and considering Manu Dharma-Sastra as representing classical Brahmanism, the earlier phase which contained germinal ideas for Jainism tends to be glossed over.
The earlier stage of development of Indian thought, the pre-Brahmanical, may be referred to as the proto-Hindu phase. This may be visualised as containing a world of ideas which provided the soil and grist for the development of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism later on. In this connection, R. Weiler's reference to the early Indian tradition is topically valuable. He obscrvcs:
Brahmanism, while not necessarily representing the most ancient religion of the Indian sub-continent, is that system of belief and ritual practice to which Indians have historically looked back as the source of their religious traditions. Whether in later Hinduism which tenaciously holds to much of the Brahmanical tradition, or in Buddhism which rejects much of it, there is presupposed this highly conscious and articulate cult, the central feature of a way of life made known through the ages by the earliest body of formal literature, the Veda. Though it is difficult to establish definite continuity in the development of religious ideas in India dating from the Indus Valley civilisation to modern times, it is however possible to distinguish a clearly non-Aryan (which may or may not be pre-Aryan) source for many of the concepts which characterise that
religion ... known as 'Hinduism' in India today.
It might be obvious from the above that I am not introducing here a term which is more acceptable and less-loaded for merely getting over the difficulties involved in conceptualising Brahmanism. What I am
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