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now, and we shall consider it in some detail in the next chapter.
(4) Heretical Views.-It is perhaps necessary to remind the reader that by 'heretical' we mean nothing more than to the Vedas (p. 16), particularly to their sacrificial teaching and the customs and institutions directly connected with it. We know (p. 43) that the opposition to Vedic religion is very old and that allusions to unbelievers are found so early as the hymns of the Ṛgveda. There is plenty of evidence to show that it was continued in the period under consideration and was further strengthened under the influence of the general reawakening of the people already mentioned. Buddhistic and Jaina works refer to numerous philosophical schools other than the Vedic, as having existed when Gotama and Mahavira taught. Hindu tradition also, reaching back to about the same time, refers to the courts of ancient kings, teeming with teachers expounding separate doctrines including heretical ones.1 Yaska again, the well-known Vedic exegete who flourished about 500 B.C., mentions in his Nirukta one Kautsa, who seems to have criticized the Veda as either meaningless or self-contradictory, and controverts at length his anti-Vedic opinions. The Kalpa-sūtras also occasionally refer to infidels (nastika) classing them with sinners and criminals.4 It is this heretical thought, almost as ancient as the doctrine of the priests and now become prominent, that gives rise to the distinction between the ideals of the Brāhmaṇas and the Sramaņas or non-priestly ascetics, frequently mentioned in the records of the period and noticed even by foreigners like Megasthenes.s
These views from their very nature must have originated outside the hieratic circles, but it does not mean that Brahmins were not connected with them. We know that there were Brahmins that dwelt in the forest who were not
1 Cambridge History of India, vol. i. p. 150. See e.g. Mbh. xii. 218. 4-5. 3 I. xv-xvi.
4 Cf. GDS. xv. 15. 5 Cambridge History of India, vol. i. pp. 419 ff. Compare also Prof. Winternitz: Ascetic Literature in Ancient India, already mentioned PP. 1-2.
