BRAHMANISM, a term commonly used to denote a system of religious institutions originated and elaborated by the _Brahmans_, the sacerdotal and, from an early period, the dominant caste of the Hindu community (see BRAHMAN). In like manner, as the language of the Aryan Hindus has undergone continual processes of modification and dialectic division, so their religious belief has passed through various stages of development broadly distinguished from one another by certain prominent features. The earliest phases of religious thought in India of which a clear idea can now be formed are exhibited in a body of writings, looked upon by later generations in the light of sacred writ, under the collective name of _Veda_ ("knowledge") or _Sruti_ ("revelation"). The Hindu scriptures consist of four separate collections, or _Samhitas_, of sacred texts, or _mantras_, including hymns, incantations and sacrificial forms of prayer, viz. the _Rich_ (nom. sing. _rik_) or _Rigveda_, the _Saman_ or _Samaveda_, the _Yajus_ or _Yajurveda_, and the _Atharvan_ or _Atharvaveda_. Each of these four text-books has attached to it a body of prose writings, called _Brahmanas_ (see BRAHMANA), intended to explain the ceremonial application of the texts and the origin and import of the sacrificial rites for which these were supposed to have been composed. Usually attached to these works, and in some cases to the Samhitas, are two kinds of appendages, the Aranyakas and Upanishads, the former of which deal generally with the more recondite rites, while the latter are taken up chiefly with speculations on the problems of the universe and the religious aims of man--subjects often touched upon in the earlier writings, but here dealt with in a more mature and systematic way. Two of the _Samhitas_, the _Saman_ and the _Yajus_, owing their existence to purely ritual purposes, and being, besides, the one almost entirely, the other partly, composed of verses taken from the _Rigveda_, are only of secondary importance for our present inquiry. The hymns of the _Rigveda_ constitute the earliest lyrical effusions of the Aryan settlers in India which have been handed down to posterity. They are certainly not all equally old; on the contrary they evidently represent the literary activity of many generations of bards, though their relative age cannot as yet be determined with anything like certainty. The tenth (and last) book of the collection, however, at any rate has all the characteristics of a later appendage, and in language and spirit many of its hymns approach very nearly to the level of the contents of the _Atharvan_. Of the latter collection about one-sixth is found also in the _Rigveda_, and especially in the tenth book; the larger portion peculiar to it, though including no doubt some older pieces, appears to owe its origin to an age not long anterior to the composition of the _Brahmanas_.