The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c7.2

c7.2

Fundamental traits of early Vedic religion—False view of the nature of Vedic poetry—The Rig-Veda as sacrificial poetry—Difficulty of understanding the ritual character of the Rig-Veda—Poetry addressed to the Goddess Dawn—A hymn to the sacrifice post—The goddess Dawn as the symbol of liberality at the sacrifice—Some erroneous estimates of Goddess Dawn—Agni the son of "Baksheesh"—Practical purposes of Vedic poetry—The Rig-Veda contains the religion of the upper classes—The ritual of the Rig-Veda—The *āprī*-hymns—Nature-worship the keynote of the Rig-Veda—India's climate and nature-worship—Vedic and Hellenic mythology compared—Arrested anthropomorphism—Definition of the word Pantheon as applied to the Veda—Faulty classifications of the Vedic gods—Chronology of the gods—Different degrees of certainty about the origin of the gods—Classification of the gods in these lectures.