The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s1.t2.1

v1.c13.s1.t2.1

While most of the Vedic nature deities are normally conceived as anthropomorphic, there did not prevail any rigid exclusion of theriomorphic conceptions of the deities. It is often asserted, even by Oldenberg,⁶ that in earlier periods of religion theriomorphic conceptions were more frequent than anthropomorphic, but the proof for such a theory seems to be wholly lacking.