[Footnote 160:  There is considerable doubt as to what was the plant originally known as Soma.  That described in the Vedas and Brahmanas is said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong smell, fiery taste and intoxicating properties.  The plants used as Haom (Hum) by the modern Parsis of Yezd and Kerman are said to be members of the family Asclepiadaceae (perhaps of the genus Sarcostemma) with fleshy stalks and milky juice, and the Soma tested by Dr Haug at Poona was probably made from another species of the same or an allied genus.  He found it extremely nasty, though it had some intoxicating effect. (See his Aitareya Brdh-mana n. p. 489.)]

[Footnote 161:  An ordinary sacrifice was offered for a private person who had to be initiated and the priests were merely officiants acting on his behalf.  In a Sattra the priests were regarded as the sacrificers and were initiated.  It had some analogy to Buddhist and Christian monastic foundations for reading sutras and saying masses.]

[Footnote 162:  The political importance of the Asvamedha lay in the fact that the victim had to be let loose to roam freely for a year, so that only a king whose territories were sufficiently extensive to allow of its being followed and guarded during its wanderings could hope to sacrifice it at the end.]

[Footnote 163:  R.V. x. 136 and x. 190.]

[Footnote 164:  Even the Upanishads (e.g. Chand.  III. 17, Mahanar. 64) admit that a good life which includes tapas is the equivalent of sacrifice.  But this of course is teaching for the elect only.  The Brih.-Aran.  Up. (V. ii) contains the remarkable doctrine that sickness and pain, if regarded by the sufferer as tapas, bring the same reward.]

[Footnote 165:  So too in the Taittiriya Upanishad tapas is described as the means of attaining the knowledge of Brahman (III. 1-5).]

[Footnote 166:  Any ritual without knowledge may be worse than useless.  See Chand.  Up.  I. 10. 11.]

[Footnote 167:  See the various narratives in the Chandogya, Br.-Aran. and Kaushitaki Upanishads.  The seventh chapter of the Chandogya relating how Narada, the learned sage, was instructed by Sanatkumara or Skanda, the god of war, seems to hint that the active military class may know the great truths of religion better than deeply read priests who may be hampered and blinded by their learning.  For Skanda and Narada in this connection see Bhagavad-gita x. 24, 26.]

[Footnote 168:  For the necessity of a teacher see Kath.  Up.  II. 8.]

[Footnote 169:  See especially the bold passage at the end of Taitt.  Upan.  II.  “He who knows the bliss of Brahman ... fears nothing.  He does not torment himself by asking what good have I left undone, what evil have I done?”]

[Footnote 170:  The word Upanishad probably means sitting down at the feet of a teacher to receive secret instruction:  hence a secret conversation or doctrine.]