The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c9.s1.2

c9.s1.2

But the every-day existence of these men is something different. It is loaded down with those dreadful practicalities. They must live by this very trade of theirs, namely, praise of the gods and purveyance of the sacrifice. When they turn their minds away, as they constantly do and must do, from those well-conceived personifications they tend downward. As middle-men between the gods and men they must, above all, take care of men, their own selves not least of all. Men can subsist and prosper only if the gods return in kind. The gods, on the whole, are good; they do not beat down the requests of him that comes with prayer and cup of *soma*. Reciprocity, frank unconditional reciprocity, thus becomes an accepted motive: “Give thou to me, I give to thee,” is the formula.¹ The sacrificing king, or rich householder, is thereby placed between the upper and the nether mill-stone: he must satisfy both gods and priests, each of whom show a surprising habit of becoming more and more exacting as time goes by. In this way the high poetic quality of Vedic religion is crowded and choked by many conceptions mean from the start, or bent by these circumstances into a mean shape. The gods themselves, notwithstanding their luminous origin, are brought down to the plane of human weakness. Open to adulation, they become vain; eager for advantage, they become shifty; reflecting human desires, they become sordid, and in some cases even indecent.