Note 150 — Volume II. (continued 2)

Brâhman.150—The levite class of the Hindu caste system. The word Brâhmana is derived from Brâhman (root brih, vrih,) “religious devotion regarded as an impulse or feeling gradually growing up and expanding so as to fill the soul.” To quote one of the latest and best authorities151—“The common term used in the Veda for the officiating priest is Brâhman (masculine, nominative singular, Brahma) originally denoting, it would seem, ‘one who prays,’ ‘worshipper,’ or ‘the composer or reciter of a hymn.’ In some passages the word also signifies a special class of priests who officiated as superintendents during sacrificial ceremonies, the complicated nature of which required the co-operation of several priests. The fact that the terms Brâhmana and Brahmaputra, both denoting the son of a Brâhman, are used in certain hymns as synonymous of Brâhman, seems to justify the assumption that the profession had already to a certain degree become hereditary at the time when the hymns were composed.” The term Brâhman, as Dr. Muir152 remarks, must have been originally applied to the same persons who are elsewhere in the Vedic hymns spoken of as Rishi, Kavi, etc., and have denoted devout worshippers and contemplative sages who composed prayers and hymns which they themselves recited in praise of the gods. Afterwards when the ceremonial gradually became more complicated and a division of sacred functions took place, the word was more ordinarily employed for a minister of public worship, and at length came to signify one particular kind of priest with special duties. The original Aryan priest was the house father, and we still find among the lower Dravidian races that the family worship is done either by the head of the household or by the son-in-law or brother-in-law; and it was only when the service of the gods became a more complicated and difficult function that a special class of officiants was created for this purpose. This differentiation of function took place, of course, at an early date in the history of the development of Hinduism. Dr. Haug153 believes that the differentiation of the functions of the classes of priests, Hotris, or repeaters of the Rik verses, the Udgâtris, the chanters of the Rik verses, and the Adhvaryus, or manual labourers and sacred cooks must have been at an early date, certainly not posterior to the collection of the Mantras, and the dicta of the Brâhman priests into separate works.