The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c10.93

c10.93

The avowed purpose of all philosophy is to account for the presence of the world and its contents, as something which is not self-evident, and needs to be explained beyond the point of mere individual experience, or analysis through empirical knowledge. The creation hymn performs this act not without some unsteadiness and with petulance due to scepticism. In putting forth a fundamental principle without personality it does not fall far behind the best thought of later times inside or outside of India. It fails where all philosophy fails, in bridging over to this particular idealistic or phenomenal world, even after the fundamental principle has been abstracted, no matter in how rarefied and non-committal a form. We may expect, therefore, other starts towards the same end. The Veda, as I have hinted before, contains an astonishing number of attempts to establish a supreme monotheistic being who is far easier to handle than the monistic "That Only"; a monotheistic god who, when once conceived, conveniently assumes all responsibility. We have seen more than once how supreme divine action makes a show of gradually detaching itself from the persons of the various gods who figure in the earlier myth and cult, and how this action impresses itself upon the mind as really more important than the particular divine agent who was at any given time supposed to perform it. Creation of the world; production of the sun; spreading out of the sky and the earth; and lordship over all that moves or stands—these are some of the grander acts in world life. Even in the Rig-Veda these acts are bunched and thrown into the lap of a divinity by the name of Prajāpati "Lord of Creatures." Various earlier divinities of a more or less abstract and specialistic character, especially Savitar, the inspiring, enlivening principle of the sun, and Tvashtar, a kind of divine carpenter or artificer of less important objects, are blended in this product; it goes as far to realise personal monotheism as was ever possible in India. One hymn¹ pictures Prajāpati in very glowing colors; he is a true creator, ruler, and preserver, and yet, it is very interesting to observe, that the description of him does not, after all, differ very materially from that of the polytheistic god Indra in the hymn, Rig-Veda 2. 12, as may be seen from a comparison of the two.² Some of the stanzas of the Prajāpati hymn are as follows: