The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c11.s3.46

v1.c11.s3.46

Certainly no more satisfactory is the belief that gods are sprung from kings or other famous and distinguished men, apart from any connexion with magic. This doctrine has always been a favourite one in connexion with Indian religion, a theory based on hasty generalizations from observation of modern instances, masquerading under the semblance of an unprejudiced study of Indian nature. The absurdity of interpreting Vedic religion of the period 1400 to 1000 B. C. by the light of investigation of the modern Hindu, separated by great differences in blood and tradition, would seem self-evident, and it is to be regretted that we have serious suggestions² made to prove the historical character of Indra as a great king, and even to localize his exploits, and not even the suggestion of primitive Euhemerists of India excuses the attempt³ to discover two ancient kings in the Açvins, a view which is ludicrous in face of the widespread recognition of similar dual divinities, a fact which shows that their worship, whatever its exact cause, cannot be put down to the suppositious existence of two specially distinguished princes. The theory wholly omits to explain why these persons should be described in terms of solar or storm mythology, or why in many parts of the earth savages are found worshipping natural phenomena so frankly as to render belief in the phenomena being really dead men ludicrous. It is somewhat unfortunate that we should have escaped from the theory of Herbert Spencer which makes the Vedic Dawn-Goddess the ‘ghost of a former Miss Dawn’ into one which makes a warrior king out of so naturalistic a god as Indra, and which, if it is consistent, ought to find in Uṣas a degeneration from the worship of some distinguished Vedic hetaira, seeing that her nature in the Rigveda suggests a distinct lack of Puritanism. On this issue the opinion of Hopkins⁴ is clear and fundamentally correct: ‘No one who reads the Rig-Veda impartially can question for a moment that Fire and Dawn and Wind were phenomenal gods from the beginning and a wider outlook only confirms this fact.’