A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.149

v1.c8.s2.149

But when people had once begun to doubt Indra himself, who was the highest and mightiest of all the gods, so much the more arose scruples concerning the plurality of the gods in general, and doubts began to arise whether indeed there was any merit in sacrificing to the gods. Thus in the hymn Ṛv. X, 121, in which Prajāpati is praised as the creator and preserver of the world and as the one god, and in which, in the refrain recurring in verse after verse : " Which god shall we honour by means of sacrifice ? " there lies hidden the thought, that in reality there is nothing in all the plurality of the gods, and that alone the one and only god, the Creator Prajāpati, deserves honour. Finally, this scepticism finds its most powerful expression in the profound poem of the Creation (Ṛv. X, 129).¹ It begins with a description of the time before the creation :