THE POPULAR BRAHMANIC FAITH For a long time after the Vedic age there is little that gives one an insight into the views of the people.

It may be presumed, since the orthodox systems never dispensed with the established cult, that the form of the old Vedic creed was kept intact.

Yet, since the real belief changed, and the cult became more and more the practice of a formality, it becomes necessary to seek, apart from the inherited ritual, the faith which formed the actual religion of the people.
Inasmuch as this phase of Hindu belief has scarcely been touched upon elsewhere, it may be well to state more fully the object of the present chapter.
We have shown above that the theology of the Vedic period had resulted, before its close, in a form of pantheism, which was accompanied, as is attested by the Atharva Veda, with a demonology and witch-craft religion, the latter presumably of high antiquity.
Immediately after this come the esoteric Br[=a]hmanas, in which the gods are, more or less, figures in the eyes of the priests, and the form of a Father-god rises into chief prominence, being sometimes regarded as the creative force, but at all times as the moral authority in the world.

At the end of this period, however, and probably even before this period ended, there is for the first time, in the Upanishads, a new religion, that, in some regards, is esoteric.
Hitherto the secrets of religious mysteries had been treated as hidden priestly wisdom, not to be revealed.

But, for the most part, this wisdom is really nonsense; and when it is said in the Br[=a]hmanas, at the end of a bit of theological mystery, that it is a secret, or that 'the gods love that which is secret,' one is not persuaded by the examples given that this esoteric knowledge is intellectually valuable.