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speculative mind against the ritualistic materialism of the Vedas.
This is not the occasion to discuss these current interpretations, but it may be urged that if these interpretations were correct, we would be obliged to believe that the profound and ultimate thoughts, systems of subtle and elaborate psychology that we find, in the substance of the Upanishad took birth out of a previous void, a position that can be accepted only by denying the sound principle of the progress of the human mind according to which knowledge is built by a slow growth from knowledge to knowledge or by renewal and enlargement of previous knowledge or by working on all imperfect clues leading new discoveries.
It would, therefore, seem logical to accept the ancient Indian tradition that the Upanishads are truly Vedanta, both as an end of the Veda and as the pinnacle of the knowledge contained in the Veda. We may also urge that in ancient Europe, too, the schools of intellectual philosophies were preceded by the secret doctrines of the mystics. It can easily be admitted that the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries prepared the rich soil of mentality out of which sprang Pythagoras and Plato. Could we not suppose similar starting- point for the later march of thought in India? Indeed, the forms and symbols of thought, which we find in the Upanishads, and much of the substance of the Brahmanas can be traced to period of the Vedic Samhitas in India in which thought took the form or veil of secret teachings such as those of the Greek mysteries.
It may be seem that the secret spiritual and psychological teaching was expressed in the Veda in a figurative and symbolic language, and the Rishis of the Veda expressed their knowledge, in secret words, ninyă vachamsi, that conveyed their meanings to the initiated or awakened in knowledge. There are two great works of Sri Aurobindo, “The Secret of the Veda” and “Hymns to the Mystic Fire”, which showed convincingly the secret import of Vedic terms, the sense of Vedic symbols and the psychological functions of the Gods that were looked upon as various aspects or names of the One and Supreme Reality. In the light of these great works, it is easier now to elucidate effectively the Vedic system of knowledge and the parts
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