Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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with the Vedic Mantras’. 5 ‘You should not neglect to perform the rites
in the honour of the gods and the ancestors. 6
These are not just isolated passages in this strain; there are so
many. 7 In fact, In some of the prose Upanisads, whole chapters are
there which have very little that is Upanisadic in them. They are
Brahmanas, pure and simple; they describe ceremonies to be
performed, state and explain the Mantras to be used therein and do
little else besides.’ 8 Also, there are some later Upanisads which are too
palpably ritualistic (e.g. the Rudraksa-Jebala Upanisad). 9 These, no
doubt are not given the same place of honour as the earlier Upansads,
but they do indicate the extent to which the attempt to engulf genuine
Upanisadic thought with the old ritualistic tradition had proceeded.
There are only two explanations possible. Either the Upanisads
in their inception were as much ritualistic and protagonistic of the
Brahmanical tenets as the other Vedic literature; or the Brahmins took
care to make the necessary interpolations and alternations before they
allowed the Upanisads to pass on to posterity as religious literature.
The second liberal trend to appear, in point of time, was the
great Buddhist movement. Sykes has adduced cogent evidence to prove
that ‘the Buddhism taught by Sakya Muni prevailed generally in India
as the predominant religion, from the Himalayas to Ceylon, and from
Orissa to Gujarat, from the 6 th century B.C., certainly to the 7 th century
A.D. ’10 In the politicalsphere, too, Fa hien found that ‘from the time of
leaving the deserts and the river (Jumna) to the West, or rather having
passed to the East-ward of the deserts and the Jumna, all the kings of
the different kingdoms in India are firmly attached to the Law of
Buddha… ’11 But of these Buddhists, who had been predominant for
about one thousands years, ‘only in Orissa, does a community (of
around 2,000 persons) remain. Other Buddhists enumerated elsewhere
in India are immigrants’. 12 Thus Buddhism was not the victim of
metamorphosis; it was a downright causality.
The genesis of Bhagavatism is shrouded in obscurity, 13 but most
of the authorities are agreed that these religions or cults