[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Religion and philosophy](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion) › [The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads)](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908) › c8.3 # The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.3 The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.3 - **Language:** English ### [c8.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8.3) THE treatment of India's prehistoric gods takes on of itself the outer form of a chapter of Comparative Mythology. We have seen in the past that the events which preceded the migration of the Aryas into India belong to two very different prehistoric periods.¹ One of these is the period when the Hindu and Iranian (Persian) peoples, the so-called Aryas, were still one people, a period which does not lie so very far behind the Veda itself, just behind the curtain which separates the earliest historical records of both India and Iran from the very long past which preceded both of them. This is the Indo-Iranian, or Aryan period. The second is the still remoter period of Indo-European unity; the languages, institutions, and religions of this great group of peoples permit us to assume that there was once upon a time one Indo-European people, and that this people possessed religious ideas which were not altogether obliterated from the minds of their descendants, the Indo-Europeans of historical times (Hindus, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, Slavs, etc.). - [Previous: c8.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8.2) - [Next: c8.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8.4) - [Up: c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.bloomfield-1908.c8.3) · Pramāṇa