Vedic Mythology c3.s3.1

c3.s3.1

— Vedic mythology is the product of an age and a country, of social and climatic conditions far removed and widely differing from our own. We have, moreover, here to deal not with direct statements of fact, but with the imaginative creations of poets whose mental attitude towards nature was vastly different from that of the men of to-day. The difficulty involved in dealing with material so complex and representing so early a stage of thought, is further increased by the character of the poetry in which this thought is imbedded. There is thus perhaps no subject capable of scientific treatment, which, in addition to requiring a certain share of poetical insight, demands caution and sobriety of judgment more urgently. Yet the stringency of method which is clearly so necessary, has largely been lacking in the investigation of Vedic mythology. To this defect, no less than to the inherent obscurity of the material, are doubtless in considerable measure due the many and great divergences of opinion prevailing among Vedic scholars on a large number of important mythological questions.