Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c17.s2.4

c17.s2.4

But even in the earliest parts of the Rigveda we find each of the two great ceremonies interpreted in a different way, and so that the one becomes to a great extent out of harmony with the other. The sacred fire is now kindled to act as ‘messenger’ between two peoples, the one on the earth and the other in heaven. The ‘people in heaven’ is variously described as consisting of the ‘gods,’ or by name of ‘Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman,’ to which list we may mentally add ‘and so forth,’ since the names given are plainly no complete catalogue of the gods meant. We have therefore in the archaic period a clear conception of a company of deities living in the sky, and an interpretation of the sacrifice as a festival to which these gods are invited by the fire-messenger to descend. This circle of deities we may provisionally name the ‘Chaldaean gods,’ since so far as our knowledge goes the study and admiration of the heavens is in the first instance associated with the shepherd-peoples of the Chaldaean plains.