Shri Gopal Basu Mallik Lectures on Vedanta Philosophy

35-42 )."CONTENTS OF PART ONE xi A Chronological Stratification of the several Upanisadic Texts.—The difference in the style and the methodology of these strata.—The prgressive evolution through these strata of the Upanisadic Theories of World-Creation of the Upanisadic Doctrines of the Soul and of the Upanisadic statements as to the Nature of the Absolute ( pp. [...] Finally the most puzzling fact about these Brahmapas is the relation in which their religion and mythology stand to those of the Avestic people the deities and the demons of the former becoming respectively the devils and the gods of the latter the ritual of the one being made deliberately antagonistic to that of the other : if the Bramanas for instance considered the North-East as the gre [...] In a knowledge of the minuti2e of the Sacrifice knowledge of the why and the how of each of these infinite minutiae was naturally believed to lie the salvation not only of the sacrificing patron and of his household but of the whole Universe ; and this is worth emphasising in the light of the subsequent teachings of the Upanisads regarding the Jfiankanda. [...] We can on the strength of the last mentioned cases no more say that the Upanisads in their present form represent the Wisdom of the Depressed' classes than on the strength of the earlier set of examples declare that the Upanisads represent the Wisdom of the Ksatriyas and not of the Brahmans especially when it is remembered that the form in which some of the admittedly Ksatriya vidgas ( e. [...] In the first place texts enough can be cited to prove that the centre of Vedic culture which in the period of the earlier Brahmanas was located on the bank of the Sarasvati in the Panjab was during the late Brahmana and the early Upanisadic period shifted to the Delta between the Ganges and the Jumna and even still farther to the East and South.