A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c3.13

c3.13

This later mythology, with its wonders and marvels, and its equally marvellous explanations of them, is the key to modern Hinduism. It is curious to trace its descent, to contrast such legends as are traceable with their simple beginnings in the Vedic hymns, and so to follow the workings of the mind of a great people through many centuries. Such a survey supplies important and interesting matter for the history of religion, and gives a clear and complete view of the degradation of a mythology. But for the purposes of comparative mythology the Pauranik legends are of trifling importance. The stories of the Epic poems even are of no great value. It may be, as has been maintained, that they “are simply different versions of one and the same story, and that this story has its origin in the phenomena of the natural world and the course of the day and the year;” but still they are of later date, and afford no direct clue for unravelling the mythology of the Āryan nations.