A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.88

v1.c8.s2.88

This warlike national god is much more suitable than any other to be the chief of gods. Although in the Ṛgveda almost every god is at some time or another praised as the first and highest of all gods—this is a sort of flattery, by means of which one wants to incline the god in one’s favour, similarly to the way in which later court poets have celebrated many a petty prince as the ruler of the world—yet Indra is, in the earliest times, undoubtedly a king among the gods, like Zeus of the Greek Olympus.