A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.63.1

v1.c8.s2.63.1

To say it in a word: what renders these hymns so valuable for us is that we see before us in them a mythology in the making.¹) We see gods, as it were, arising before our eyes. Many of the hymns are not addressed to a sun-god, nor to a moon-god, nor to a fire-god, nor to a god of the heavens, nor to storm-gods and water-deities, nor to a goddess of the dawn and an earth-goddess, but the shining sun itself, the gleaming moon in the nocturnal sky, the fire blazing on the hearth or on the altar or even the lightning shooting forth from the cloud, the bright sky of day, or the starry sky of night, the roaring storms, the flowing waters of clouds and of rivers, the glowing dawn and the spread-out fruitful earth—all these natural phenomena are, as such, glorified, worshipped, and invoked. Only gradually is accomplished in the songs of the Ṛgveda itself, the transformation of these natural phenomena into mythological figures, into gods and goddesses such as Sūrya (Sun), Soma (Moon), Agni (Fire), Dyaus (Sky), Maruts (Storms), Vāyu (Wind), Āpas (Waters), Uṣas (Dawn), and Pṛthivī (Earth), whose names still indubitably indicate what they originally were. So the songs of the Ṛgveda prove indisputably that the most prominent figures of mythology have proceeded from personifications of the most striking natural phenomena.