Diversity is not disharmony. Without formal rules, Hindus organized a vast collection of texts into categories and canonized them in a system that was authoritative throughout Hindu culture. In this respect India invites comparison with another ancient people with intense spiritual longings who remained decentralized, not by choice but by the destruction of their political integrity: the Jews. In this description of the Mishnaic inheritance we might almost be reading a description of the Upanishads:[7]
