During his time in Dresden, Chamberlain like many other "völkisch" activists became fascinated with Hindu mythology and legend, and learned Sanskrit in order to read the ancient Indian epics like the "Vedas" and the "Upanishads" in their original form. In these stories about ancient Aryan heroes conquering the Indian subcontinent, Chamberlain found a very appealing world governed by a rigid caste system with social inferiors firmly locked into their place; full of larger-than-life Aryan gods and aristocratic heroes and a world that focused on the spiritual at the expense of the material. Since by this time, historians, archaeologists and linguists had all accepted that the Aryans ("light ones") of Hindu legend were an Indo-European people, Chamberlain had little trouble arguing that these Aryans were in fact Germanic peoples, and modern Germans had much to learn from Hinduism, stating "in the night of the inner life ... the Indian ... finds his way in the dark more surely than anyone". For Chamberlain the Hindu texts offered a body of pure Aryan thought that made it possible to find the harmony of humanity and nature, which provided the unity of thought, purpose and action that provided the necessary spirituality for Aryan peoples to find true happiness in a world being destroyed by a soulless materialism. The popularity of the Hindu texts with the "völkisch" movement explains why the swastika, an ancient Indian symbol, was adopted by the "völkisch" activists as one of their symbols.