The rewards requested from the devas in the Vedic hymns have a decidedly this-worldly character: sons, long life, victory in battle, etc. And the motivation behind the later sacrificial system is the maintenance of the cosmic order, implying the same idea of prosperity on earth.

The early section of the Atharva-Veda deals even more with the minutiae of ordinary, daily life. Behind the speculations about the One lies a quest for the one power that controls all others in this world.

Then suddenly a new set of concepts becomes documented, from around 800 bce onwards. These ideas are so much at variance with what we have encountered so far that some kind of discontinuity must be assumed. Here now we find expressed a conception of transcen­dence, a reality beyond all limitations of space, time and matter. Moreover, this reality contrasts sharply with ordinary life which appears limited, painful and undesirable by comparison with it. In addition, the span of this ‘ordinary life’ is extended greatly, for a potentially unlimited chain of such existences is envisaged for each living being. This is the idea of transmigration or rebirth. Each life is the result of previous lives, and in turn conditions further lives. Nevertheless, a qualitative leap into the realm of transcendence, of liberation from transmigration, is possible. It is simply a question of knowing what causes further rebirth and what the means are of escaping from it. Here also, in the perception of such means, the discontinuity with Vedic religion is apparent. No ritual, no deva could ever achieve it, only ‘knowledge’. From the way that this ‘knowledge’ is described to us, and the more explicit statements about the method we are given, it can be inferred that we are dealing with ascetically, meditationally gained ‘altered’ or ‘higher’ states of consciousness. Desire and ignorance inevitably appear as the crucial cause of rebirth, and ascetic practices coupled with meditation are advocated as eradicating them.

The source of such ideas is obscure, but it is extremely unlikely that the soma-induced state of altered consciousness has had any causal link with them. It appears to be more likely that somewhere ‘outside’ the Vedic tradition these religious ideas were picked up and/or cultivated by some Aryas. What precisely this ‘outside’ could mean is impos­sible to answer; local tribal religion has been suggested. But it is clear that in some sense the follower of this type of religion places himself outside Aryan society and Vedic religion. He becomes a ‘renouncer’.

This brief introductory sketch has gathered together material which textually has been preserved in three very different religious traditions and therefore is normally treated under three separate headings. These are the Upanisads, Jainism and Buddhism. But either by assuming a straightforward continuity between the Vedas and Upanisads, or by treating for instance Buddhism in isolation from its context within the renouncer tradition, many important features would be distorted. On various (mainly linguistic and geographical) grounds, the earliest texts known as Upanisads have been dated around 800 âñå. Then there are hints that Jainism is not the original creation of the alleged founder, the Mahavira (of the sixth or fifth century âñå), but the remodelling of a somewhat earlier religion associated with the name of Parsva. Thus when the Buddha taught around the sixth century âñå, he had to address himself to a centuries-old tradition. The sophistication of his teaching would support his relatively late position within the renouncer tradition.

Whilst Jainism and Buddhism rejected in toto the Vedic religious tradition (and thus turned ‘heterodox’), the Upanisads appear to attempt a synthesis or compromise. But whatever the theoretical position was in relation to the Veda, in terms of social behaviour the three varieties represent one movement: the renouncer tradition which defined itself as superior to ritualism. But what was felt to be even more important by each type within this tradition was a definition in relation to the other types. There are enough traces left in the literature to catch glimpses of an extremely variegated and dynamic internal discussion, and the three contestants men­tioned here are no more than the eventual ‘winners’.