The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c24.10

v1.c24.10

That the gods are kind to their worshippers is supplemented by the assertion that they do not deceive and are true, doubtless in the main an assertion that the gods send the blessings which they are asked to give, and for which offerings are bestowed on them. But it is an essential distinction between the religion of the Veda and many other religions, not merely Semitic, that there is no great stress laid on the moral quality of the gods, and that the sense of sin is only very feebly represented in the hymns: the moral aspect of the Rigveda is practically confined to the case of the gods Varuṇa, the Ādityas, and Aditi herself, and it is doubtless from these gods that here and there other gods assume the aspect of punishers and remitters of sin. Moreover, despite the stress which is laid on the position of these gods, the Rigveda itself, and in far greater degree the Atharvaveda, present us with a much simpler conception of sin, which assimilates it to a disease. Sin is something which sticks to a man, which confers a taint upon him as a disease does, and it is to be fought against in the same way as a disease: it may be banished by spells, water may wash it out, fire may purify it; it has precisely the same remedies as a disease, and is as external as a disease itself. The sinner has no consciousness of any more sin than would be produced by a disease. The hieratic poetry of the Rigveda cannot be said to take normally this view of the case, but it is obviously in itself the more popular view, and the Atharvaveda here certainly reflects the feelings of those classes to whom the high gods, the doctrine of consciousness of sin, and the forgiveness of sin were far away.