The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c7.51

c7.51

We are now better prepared to bear up under the statement that Vedic religion is from the very first moment practical and utilitarian, and that the Vedic people, to begin with, practise their religion for what there is in it. The Rig-Veda with its worship of the great nature-gods represents from the start a form of worship very similar, though apparently neither as extensive nor as formal and rigid as the later technical ritual of the Yajur-Vedas and the Brāhmanas. The poetry of the Rig-Veda is in the main also really dull and mechanical, but we have seen that, in good part, it is leavened by true beauty of conception, fineness of observation, and all the circumstances of literary composition which we of modern times are accustomed to see at work with its eyes shut—or half shut—to practical considerations. We must not be misled by these mental defects of the Vedic poets into an exaggeratedly pessimistic view of their entire activity. A great diplomatist, upon whom depends the destiny of his country, may be shrewd, unscrupulous, Machiavellian, velvet as to glove, iron as to hand, and yet be a real patriot. Even so a priestly religion of works, trivial as these works may appear to our eyes, does not shut out spiritual elevation. Nor does practical poetry shut out entirely the more silent workings of literary taste and poetic inspiration. The Vedic poets themselves insist upon it, their poems are "well-hewn," "well-fashioned as a war-chariot from the hands of a skilled artisan." And so they are in many cases: if we cut out the foolish sacrifice, and pare down a pretty thick crust of conventionalism, there is left in the Vedic hymns enough of beauty and character to secure them a place in the world's literature. Forget but the string that ties the thought of the Vedic Rishis to the sacrificial post, and you shall see that thought flit far away to great heights, where birds do not fly.¹ For the time being, at least, it becomes what we call inspired, and, anyhow, it breeds the germs that shall flower out to great things in future days, when Hindu thought finally emancipates itself from sacrifice along with many other trivialities of life.