The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c7.s1.32

c7.s1.32

Fortunately it does not fall within the province of these lectures to exhaust the long-drawn and monotonous theme of Vedic mythology, or to establish definitely the precise origin of all the gods. My object is to sketch the motives and principles that underlie the remarkable chain of religious ideas that leads from the ritual worship of the great nature-gods of the Rig-Veda to the high theosophy of the Upanishads. Mythology pervades this development to a very great extent, so that we must understand its principles. But a mythic figure more or less cannot materially change the picture, when once we know how mythic figures in general are fabricated, and then overlaid with religious feeling and advancing religious thought. The particular character of the individual god soon becomes unimportant. One of the most remarkable facts in the religion of the Veda, when carried to its legitimate conclusion, is, that these multiple gods really vanish in the end, after they have contributed their individual attributes to the great idea of unity, of oneness at the root of the universe. This is the very negation of mythology and Pantheons; of sacrificial hocus-pocus and poetic fable. And when the twilight has engulfed these gods, then, and not until then, in India as elsewhere, do real religion and real philosophy begin.