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THE PRACTICAL PATH.
of rape on his own unmarried daughter, Satarupa.* Even the six schools of philosophy or darshanas, which endeavoured to give a systematic presentation of the subject of Religion, end in contradicting one another. The result is that nobody seems to know, even to-day, what is the true teaching of Hinduism, though the follower of the Ishvaraless Sankhya is dubbed a Hindu as much as the devotee of Vishnu, or the worshipper at the shrine of Sitla, the controlling deity of small-pox. So far as sacrificial rites are concerned, there can be little doubt that animal sacrifices are opposed to the purity of the spirit of the Rig-veda, and that such ceremonies as the aja-medha (goat-sacrifice), the ashva-medha (horse-sacrifice), the go-medha (cow-sacrifice) and the purusha medha (human sacrifice) were adopted afterwards in some evil moment of time. This is evident from the general nature of the personifications made, especially from that of Agri which represents tapa (asceticism), the direct antithesis of the principle underlying human or animal sacrifice. Such of the Vedic text as, “Childless be the devouring ones,'t and those which contain strong imprecations against rakshasas and flesh-eaterst also furnish strong evidence in support of this view. The tremendous endeavours Hindus have themselves made subsequently to put a symbolical interpretation on the sacrificial text only go to show how bitterly the Hindu heart was opposed to animal-sacrifice. How these sacrificial texts came
*See Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, 1. 4. 4., and for the true interpretation of its text, The Key of Knowledge, pages 684 et seq.
+ The Rig Veda, I. 21.5. t See Wilkins' Hindu Mythology, p. 27.
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