A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c11.53

c11.53

has reference to the external aspects of the deity, and to his supposed working in nature. The key-note of all religion, natural as well as revealed, is present in the hymns of the Veda, and never completely drowned by the strange music which generally deafens our ears when we first listen to the wild echoes of the heathen worship. There is the belief in God, the perception of the difference between good and evil, the conviction that God hates sin, and loves the righteous. We can hardly speak with sufficient reverence of the discovery of these truths, however trite they may appear to ourselves; and, if the name of revelation seems too sacred a name to be applied to them, that of discovery is too profane, for it would throw the vital truths of all religion, both ancient and modern, into the same category as the discoveries of a Galileo or a Newton. Theologians may agree in denying that any man in possession of his reason can, without a crime, remain ignorant of God for any length of time. Missionaries, however, who held and defended this opinion, have been led to very different convictions after some intercourse with savage tribes. Dobrizhoffer¹, who was for eighteen years a Missionary in Paraguay, states that the language of the Abipones does not contain a single word which expresses God or a divinity. Penafiel, a Jesuit theologian, declared that there were many Indians who, on being asked whether, during the whole course of their lives they ever thought of God, replied, no, never. Dobrizhoffer says, "Travelling with fourteen Abipones, I sat down by the fire in the open air, as usual on the high shore of the river Plata. The sky, which was perfectly serene, delighted our eyes with its twinkling stars. I began a conversation with the Cacique Ychoalay, the most intelligent of all the Abipones I have been acquainted with, as well as the most famous in war. ‘Do you behold,’ said I, ‘the splendour of Heaven, with its magnificent arrangement of stars? Who can suppose that all this is produced by chance? Whom do you suppose to be their creator and governor? What were the opinions of your ancestors on the subject?’ ‘My father,’ replied Ychoalay, readily, and frankly, ‘our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, were wont to contemplate the earth alone, solicitous only to see whether the plain afforded grass and water for their horses. They never troubled themselves about what went on in the Heavens, and who was the creator and governor of the stars.’” The Guaranies, who had an expression for the supreme Deity whom they call *tupa*, a word composed of two particles—*tu*, a word of admiration, and *pa*, of interrogation, nevertheless worshipped only an evil spirit. Let us turn our eyes from the Indians of America to the Indians of India, and we shall perceive the immense distance by which these noble races are separated from the savage tribes to whom our Missionaries are still trying, and trying in vain, to impart the first principles of religion. The language of their simple prayers is more intelligible to us, their whole world of thought and feeling is nearer to us, than anything we find in the literature of Greece and Rome, and there are, here and there, short expressions of faith and devotion in which even a Christian can join without irreverence. If the following were not addressed to Varuṇa, one of the many names of the deity, it would seem to contain nothing strange or offensive to our ears: