The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c9.70

c9.70

The most prominent of the gods of the Rig-Veda is Indra. About two hundred and fifty hymns are devoted to his praise, perhaps one-fourth of all the hymns of the collection. No account of Vedic religion can pass by his big personality, and yet his essence and quality are that of lower, rather than higher religious conceptions, even if we adopt no higher standard than the Rig-Veda. To the growingly finer religious thought of the later Veda Indra contributes nothing positive. Negatively, the coarse grain and the fleshliness of his character which, taken all in all, are foreign to the gods of the Vedic Pantheon, arrest very unfavorable attention. Indra is so grossly anthropomorphic, that is, he embodies so completely the human qualities of brag and bluster, gluttony, drunkenness, and lust, as to make him the peg upon which to hang scepticism. In that way he contributes negatively to the advance of Hindu thought. Of this later on.