A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c11.13

c11.13

In one sense it is true, no doubt, that invocations of all the gods, the Viśve Devas¹ as they are called, represent a later phase of thought than invocations of single deities. Nevertheless, there is nothing to show that this comprehensive view of all the deities belongs to an age later than that which gave rise to the most ancient hymns which we possess, and which celebrate the power and majesty of individual deities, such as Varuṇa, Indra, Agni (fire), the Maruts (the winds), Ushas (dawn), &c. When these individual gods are invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the supplicant as good as all the gods. He is felt, at the time, as a real divinity—as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from the vision of the poet, and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers. "Among you, O gods, there is none that is small, none that is young; you are all great indeed," is a sentiment which, though, perhaps, not so distinctly expressed as by Manu Vaivasvata, nevertheless, underlies all the poetry of the Veda. Although the gods are sometimes distinctly invoked as the great and the small, the young and the old (Rv. i. 27. 13), this is only an attempt to find the most comprehensive expression for the divine powers, and nowhere is any of the gods represented as the slave of others. It would be easy to find, in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in which almost every single god is represented as supreme and absolute. In the first hymn of the second Maṇḍala, Agni is called the ruler of the universe¹, the lord of men, the wise king, the father, the brother, the son, and friend of men²; nay, all the powers and names of the others are distinctly ascribed to Agni. The hymn belongs, no doubt, to the modern compositions; yet, though Agni is thus highly exalted in it, nothing is said to disparage the divine character of the other gods. Indra is celebrated as the strongest god in the hymns as well as in the Brâhmaṇas, and the burden of one of the songs of the tenth book³ is: Viśvasmâd Indra uttaraḥ, "Indra is greater than all." Of Soma it is said that he was born great, and that he conquers every one.⁴ He is called the king of the world⁵, he has the power to prolong the life of men⁶, and in one sense he is called the maker of heaven and earth, of Agni, of Sûrya, of Indra, and of Viṣṇu.¹