(The Princes) come and assist at the offerings.
We have received the appointment in all its greatness,
And from Heaven is our prosperity sent down,
Fruitful years of great abundance.
(Our ancestor) will come and enjoy (our offerings),
And confer (on us) happiness without limit.
"May he regard our sacrifices in summer and winter,
(Thus) offered by the descendant of Y'ang."
§ 79. During the growth of the Bráhman caste in India, the old ritual-book of the Rig-Veda was supplemented by the addition of three other service-books. The Rig-Veda had been the hymns in their simplest form; by degrees were added the Sáma-Veda, or hymns of the Rig-Veda, to be used at the Soma sacrifice, the Yajur-Veda "consisting not only of Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences to be used at the great sacrifices, and divided into two editions, called the Black and White Yajur," and the Atharva-Veda, consisting of the least ancient hymns at the end of the Rig-Veda and of later poems. To each of these four Vedas prose works were in time attached, called Bráhmanas, explaining the sacrifices and duties of the priests, and forming with the Vedas the sruti—"things heard from God"—or revealed scriptures of the Hindus. "The Vedas supplied their divinely inspired psalms, and the Bráhmanas their divinely inspired theology or body of doctrine." Afterwards were added the Sútras—"strings of pithy sentences"—on laws and ceremonies, for the Bráhmans, like the Hebrew priests, were not only the holy guardians of religious ritual, but, like the Irish Brehons, interpreters and co-ordinators of law never in India very distinctly separated from religion. Later on, the Upanishads, treating of God and the soul, exemplified that development of philosophy out of religion which can be easily illustrated elsewhere than in India; the Aranyakas, or "tracts for the forest recluse,"
