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INTRODUCTION
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was prevalent even before the time of the Rigvedic period, probably due to the influence of the Lord Vrishabha of the Ikshavaku clan. This school of thought continued to have a parallel existence to the vedic culture of the sacrificial tenets There must have been mutual influence between these two schools, one emphasising sacrifice and the other condemning it. That there were such counter currents of thought is obvious from the conflicting passages found in the Rigvedic literature It sometimes emphasises sacrifice, in such passage as Ajena Eshtavyaha, and sometimes condemns sacrifice-Ma-himsyat In this struggle between the two schools of thought, we find the rival school to Vedic sacrifice becoming more dominant now and then, leading to giving up of sacrifice and Indra worship. But about the time of the rise of the Upanishadic literature the schools standing for Ahimsa championed by the succession of Kshatriya teachers became quite supreme. The sacrificial cult championed by the Priests evidently gave up the struggle as hopeless and entered into a compromise. They recognised the new thought characterised by Ahimsa and Atmavidya as distinctly superior to their own sacrificial cult which they accepted to be distinctly inferior. This compromising effect by welcoming the new thought as Paravidya and assigning an inferior place to the sacrificial cult as Aparavidya must have secured intellectual peace and harmony only for some time. Becaur in the latter Upanishadic literature while accepting the new doctrine of Atmavidya they surreptitiously smuggled into the Upanishadic cult the doctrine of sacrifice as a specially exempted one. Thus we find in Upanishadic literature an open recognition of the doctrine of Ahimsa and at the same time introducing a clause except in the case of religious sacrifice. This ingenius method of smuggling into the new thought, the old objected doctrine of sacrificial ceremony was evidently virulently protested by the rival schools. The struggle continued with increased strength, because by that time, the old Vrishabha thought of Ahimsa gained additional strength by the rise of Buddhism and also from the co-operation of the Sankhya and Yoga schools which crystalised out of the Upanishadic cult itself. Strange to say there was the unexpected co-operation from free thinking
