SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

"
Know
THE SVETASVATARA UPANISHAT. 125
fiees being well known to be only the first three Pitrusharthas,
by the worship of the various Powers of Nature, the object of
Tantric or Agamic worship was the attainment of the fourth
Purusharta or Moksha. By the time we get into the Upanishat
period, we could see how a new and spiritual interpretation
was put upon the old Yeclic sacrifices, and the uselessness of
sacrifice as an end in itself was strongly declared. Says M.
Earth : "Sacrifice is only an act of preparation. It is the best
of acts, but it is an act and its fruit consequently perishable.
Accordingly although whole sections of these treatises
(Upanishats) are taken up exclusively with speculations on the
rites, what they teach may be summed up in the words of
Mundaka Upanishat.
the Atman only and away with
every thing else it alone is the ; bridge to immortality. The
Veda itself and the whole cycle of sacred science are quite as
sweepingly consigned to the second place. The Veda is not
the true Brahman it is
; only its reflection and the science of
;
this imperfect Brahman, this Sabda Brahman or Brahman in
words is only
a science of a lower order. The true science
is that which has the true Brahman, the Parabrahman for its
subject."
As the story in the Kena Upanishat will show, the most
powerful of the Rig Veda deities, Indra, and Agni and Vayu
and Varuna were also relegated to a secondary place ;
and the
worship of the only One, without a second, the Consort of Uma,
Haiinavati, was commenced. The Kena Upanishat story is
repeated in the Puranas, the Supreme Brahman is mentioned
there as Siva and Rudra. And the story of Rudra destroy
ing Dakshas s sacrifice, and disgracing the Gods who took part
in the sacrifice, with the sequel of His consort, named then
Ddkshayani (the fruit or spirit of sacrifice) becoming reborn
as Uma, (wisdom or Brahmajnan) Haimavati, would seem to
go before the story in the Kena Upanishat. The story of the
desecration of the sacrifice of the Rishis of Darukavana by
Sivaand Vishnu would point to the same moral. So that, by
this time, the backbone of the old unmeaning
Vedic sacrifices