The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c15.58

v1.c15.58

Any division of the subject-matter must therefore in the main be based on considerations of convenience. These considerations lead to the view that the most satisfactory order is to treat first of the greater gods as celestial (Chap. 8), aerial (Chap. 9), and terrestrial (Chap. 10), of the minor nature deities (Chap. 11), of the abstract deities (Chap. 12), and of the groups of divinities (Chap. 13). Then will follow the priests and heroes of old times, including some figures who may be suspected of being faded gods (Chap. 14). The demons will be treated together in the next chapter (15). In origin they are clearly in part derived from natural phenomena, as is the case with the chief enemies of the gods as opposed to the demons which afflict men: of the latter some may doubtless be derived from the conception of the spirits of the hostile dead, others are more vaguely animistic in origin, while yet others seem developed from a naturalistic or animatistic basis in the noxious or tricky forms of nature. The relations between the gods and their worshippers, apart from the sacrifice and the ritual, will be dealt with in Chap. 16, while the question of the spirits of the dead and the cult of ancestors, the Fathers, will be reserved for connected treatment in Part IV.