Brahmanism is a religious and social system prevalent amongst the Hindus, and so called because it was developed and expounded by the sacerdotal caste known as the Brahmans. Brahmanism is founded on the ancient religious writings known as the Vedas and regarded as sacred revelations, of which the Brahmans as a body became custodians and interpreters, being also the officiating priests and the general directors of sacrifices and religious rites.
As the priestly caste increased in numbers and power they went on elaborating the ceremonies, and added to the Vedas other writings tending to confirm the excessive pretensions of this now predominant caste, and give them the sanction of a revelation. The earliest supplements to the Vedas are the Brahmanas, more fully explaining the functions of the officiating priests. Both together form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus.
In time the caste of Brahmans came to be accepted as a divine institution, and an elaborate system of rules defining and enforcing by the severest penalties its place as well as that of the inferior castes was promulgated. Other early castes were the Kshattriyas or warriors, and the Vaisyas or cultivators, and it was not without a struggle that the former recognized the superiority of the Brahmans. It was by the Brahmans that the Sanskrit literature was developed;
and they were not only the priests, theologians, and philosophers, but also the poets, men of science, lawgivers, administrators, and statesmen of the Aryans of India.
The sanctity and inviolability of a Brahman are maintained by severe penalties. The murder of one of the order, robbing him, etc, are inexpiable sins; even the killing of his cow can only be expiated by a painful penance. A Brahman should pass through four states: First, as Brahmachari, or novice, he begins the study of the sacred Vedas, and is initiated into the privileges and the duties of his caste. He has a right to alms, to exemption from taxes, and from capital and even corporal punishment. Flesh and eggs he is not allowed to eat. Leather, skins of animals, and most animals themselves are impure and not to be touched by him. When manhood comes he ought to marry, and as Grihastha enter the second state, which requires more numerous and minute observances. When he has begotten a son and trained him up for the holy calling he ought to enter the third state, and as Vanaprastha, or inhabitant of the forest, retire from the world for solitary praying and meditation, with severe penances to purify the spirit; but this and the fourth or last state of a Sannyasi, requiring a cruel degree of asceticism, are now seldom reached, and the whole scheme is to be regarded as representing rather the Brahmanical ideal of life than the actual facts.
The worship represented in the oldest Vedic literature is that of natural objects: the sky, personified in the god Indra; the dawn, in Ushas; the various attributes of the sun, in Vishnu, Surya, Agni, etc. These gods were invoked for assistance in the common affairs of life, and were propitiated by offerings which, at first few and simple, afterwards became more complicated and included animal sacrifices. In the later Vedic hymns a philosophical conception of religion and the problems of being and creation appears struggling into existence; and this tendency is systematically developed by the supplements and commentaries known as the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. In some of the Upanishads the deities of the old Vedic creed are treated as symbolical. Brahma, the supreme soul, is the only reality, the world is regarded as an emanation from him, and the highest good of the soul is to become united with the divine. The necessity for the purification of the soul in order to its reunion with the divine nature gave rise to the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration.
This philosophical development of Brahmanism gave rise to a distinct separation between the educated and the vulgar creeds. Whilst from the fifth to the first century BC the higher thinkers amongst the Brahmans were developing a philosophy which recognized that there was but one god, the popular creed had concentrated its ideas of worship round three great deities - Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who now took the place of the confused old Vedic Pantheon. Brahma, the creator, though considered the most exalted of the three, was too abstract an idea to become a, popular god, and soon sank almost out of notice. Thus the Brahmans became divided between Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer and reproducer, and the worshippers of these two deities now form the two great religious sects of India. Siva, in his philosophical significance, is the deity mostly worshipped by the conventional Brahman, while in his aspect of the Destroyer, or in one of his female manifestations, he is the god of the low castes, and was often worshipped with degrading rites. But the highly cultivated Brahman was still a pure theist, and the educated Hindu in general professes to regard the special deity he chooses for worship as merely a form under which the One First Cause may be approached
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The sharp division of the people of India into 'civilized' Aryans and crude non-Aryans had a great influence upon Brahmanism, and thus the spiritual conceptions of the old Vedic creed were mixed in later Hinduism with superstitions and customs belonging to the so-called aboriginal races. Suttee, for example, or the burning of widows, has no authority in the Veda, but like most of the darker features of Hinduism is the result of a compromise which the Brahmanical teachers had to make with the non-Aryan races in India. The Buddhist religion has also had an important influence on the Brahmanic.
The system of caste originally no doubt represented distinctions of race. The early classification of the people was that of 'twice-born' Aryans (priests, warriors, husbandmen) and once-born non-Aryans (serfs); but intermarriages, giving rise to a mixed progeny, and the variety of employments in later times, profoundly modified this simple classification. Innumerable minor distinctions have grown up, so that amongst the Brahmans alone there are several hundred castes who traditionally cannot intermarry or eat food cooked by each other.
The Brahmans represent the highest culture of India, and as the result of centuries of education and self-restraint have evolved a type of man considered by the West as distinctly superior to the castes around them. They still had great influence at the start of the 20th century, and occupied the highest places at the courts of princes. Many, however, were driven by need or other motives into trades and employments inconsistent with the original character of their caste. Research Brahmanism
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