The Religious Quest of India Indian Theism from the Vedic to the Muhammadan Period

For until a clear understanding has been gained of the practical influence exerted by the habits of worship by the practice of the ascetic devotional or occult discipline by the social organization and by the family system the real impact of the faith upon the life of the individual and the community cannot be estimated and without the advantage of extended personal intercourse a trustworthy [...] Difficulty of determining the chronology of the Hymns and the causes and course of the develoment of their religious ideas. [...] THEISTIC ELEMENTS IN THE POPULAR RELIGION IN THE PERIOD OF THE BRÄHMANAS AND THE UPANISADS The change from the Vedic to the Brahmanic period. [...] First in our treatment of the subject will come an account mainly historical of the successive efforts in the direction of Theism which mark the whole course of the development of Indian religion from the Vedic to the Muhamadan period. [...] Our main guides apart from the contents of the Hymns themselves must be the analogy of the course of evolution of other religions on the one hand and the subsequent history of Indian thought on the other.