The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s5.14

v2.c39.s5.14

When no clear distinction had been made between personal and impersonal, and anything whatever might be conceived as active and living, it was inevitable that little progress could be made with formal definitions. We have instead endless identifications; the sacrifice is man or the year or anything else which may suit the moment, and, if the horse character (*açvatva*) of the horse is explained, it is merely that it came into being from the eye of Prajāpati when it was swollen (*açvayat*). Some of these etymologies were probably recognized as absurd by their makers, but others not, despite the fact that there was already developing itself an acute system of linguistic investigations, which reveals itself in the early appearance of terms for number (*vacana*), case forms (*vibhakti*) and so on, and in investigations as to euphonic combination and phonetical peculiarities.² When the priests set to work to define, they normally merely give fanciful identifications, as those of Agni Vaiçvānara, which they propound to Açvapati Kaikeya.³ Nevertheless, occasionally they reveal more acumen; the vague term Kratu is defined; ‘When a man wishes, “May I do that, may I have that,” that is Kratu; when he attains it, that is Dakṣa.’⁴