The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.40

c8.40

But these two religions began at approximately the same point, and they continue with enough of the same materials to make the study of each in some measure dependent upon the other. We are here concerned with the Vedic side only. A very considerable number of important Vedic divinities, religious conceptions, and sacred institutions belong to this common Aryan period.¹ Their sphere is enlarged, their meaning better defined, and their chronology shifted across long periods of time, if we keep our eye on the Avesta. Of course we must not neglect to allow for the process of recoining which these ideas have passed through in India. In a certain sense every prehistoric religious idea that has managed to survive and to emerge in India has become Hindu; not the least fascinating part of these researches is to show just how the spirit of India nationalises or individualises the ideas that were born on a different soil.