Source: TW
“brahmanism/brahmanical religion” are just dysphemisms for core features of Hindu polytheism:
- Deep reverence for rituals & ritual specialists (the “priests”)
- intuitive recognition of the plurality of categories/distinctions,
- From 1 & 2: Value for formalism/hierarchies
These 3 features are neither unique to brAhmaNas nor are they somehow “bad”. The beauty & complexity of polytheist ritual was framed in missionary discourse as perverse “Priestcraft” (invokes the connotations of ‘witchcraft’)
Ritual, as a category of thought, is not a brAhmaNa monopoly in Hindu dharma. Every jAti had its priesthood & ritual tradition. But, like it or not, it was the brAhmaNa spearheading the preservation of the essential character of Hindu polytheism. In every great polytheist civilization, it was the respective priesthood that generated intellectual impetus for sustaining the overall “spirit” of the old religion, even as local & household cults flourished in their own spaces as miniature versions of the grander priesthoods.
That role in Hindu society was that of the brAhmaNa. He had to be undermined and vilified. When I said that these features are not only related to brAhmaNas, I meant that there was a whole host of jAtis which possessed ritual expertise & specialists.
Consider this example: The paRaiya priests of kerala. One sees many “brahmanical” memes (Basic mantrashAstra syntax: svAhA, the kavacha “format” of placing various beings on various sides of oneself, etc) being skillfully combined with their own deities/ideas.
The bauddha-s of nippanadesha borrowed generously from our mantrashAstra, the basic structure of homa ritual (goma) & even our deities . These “brahmanical” memes are what prevented bauddham there from becoming the counter-religious nuisance it became in other instances.
Western scholars did not attack only the brAhmaNas & the grand, complex, beautiful & often baroque conceptions of rituals, deities, mantras, mantras as deities and what not as “priestcraft” or “regressive superstition”.