Studies in the Epics and Puranas c8.19

c8.19

An entirely different treatment of the cosmological problem is contained in the philosophical hymn, Ṛgveda, X. 129, which, for depth of speculation is one of the most admirable poems of the Ṛgveda; it has passed over into the general literature of religion and philosophy. Prof. W. D. Whitney remarked anent it in 1882, that the unlimited praises which had been bestowed upon it as philosophy and as poetry were well-nigh nauseating.⁹ And yet, twelve years later, Dr. Paul Deussen, who according to Dr. Maurice Bloomfield, was not trying to contradict Whitney, broke out into new praise, more ecstatic than ever: