The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s3.17

v1.c13.s3.17

Naturally enough, we find the term Deva expanding in use with the development of religion and the spread of the doctrine of transmigration which ultimately allows of no vital difference between gods and demons, so that the epic¹¹ can talk of the gods beginning with Brahman and ending with Piçācas; but here again it is idle to antedate and to read into Vedic times an obscuration of sense which was a natural later development. To attribute to the Vedic period all that is in the epic is at least as rash as to deny to it everything not explicitly found in Vedic texts.