Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s2: The Teaching of the Vedas

Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s2

Language: English

The Teaching of the Vedas

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Different views of the spirit of the Vedic hymns are held by competent scholars who have made these ancient scriptures their life study. Pfleiderer speaks of the “primæval child-like naïve prayer of Ṛg-Veda.” Pictet maintains that the Aryans of the Ṛg-Veda possessed a monotheism, however vague and primitive it might be. Roth and Dayānanda Sarasvatī, the founder of the Arya Samaj, agree with this view. Ram Mohan Roy considers the Vedic gods to be “the allegorical representations of the attributes of the supreme Deity.” According to others, Bloomfield among them, the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda are sacrificial compositions of a primitive race which attached great importance to ceremonial rites. Bergaigne holds that they were all allegorical. Sāyaṇa, the famous Indian commentator, adopts the naturalistic interpretation of the gods of the hymns, which is supported by modern European scholarship. Sāyaṇa sometimes interprets the hymns in the spirit of the later Brāhmanic religion. These varying opinions need not be looked upon as antagonistic to one another, for they only point to the heterogeneous nature of the Ṛg-Veda collection. It is a work representing the thought of successive generations of thinkers, and so contains within it different strata of thought. In the main, we may say that the Ṛg-Veda represents the religion of an unsophisticated age. The great mass of the hymns are simple and naïve, expressing the religious consciousness of a mind yet free from the later sophistication. There are also hymns which belong to the later formal and conventional age of the Brāhmaṇas. There are some, especially in the last book, which embody the mature results of conscious reflection on the meaning of the world and man's place in it. Monotheism characterises some of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda. There is no doubt that sometimes the several gods were looked upon as the different names and expressions of the Universal Being.¹ But this monotheism is not as yet the trenchant clear-cut monotheism of the modern world.

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¹ See R.V., i. 164-46 and 170-71.

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Mr. Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Indian scholar-mystic, is of opinion that the Vedas are replete with suggestions of secret doctrines and mystic philosophies. He looks upon the gods of the hymns as symbols of the psychological functions. Sūrya signifies intelligence, Agni will, and Soma feeling. The Veda to him is a mystery religion corresponding to the Orphic and Eleusinian creeds of ancient Greece. "The hypothesis I propose is that the Ṛg-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historical Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the gods. This wisdom was, they thought, unfit for, perhaps even dangerous, to the ordinary human mind, or in any case liable to perversion and misuse and loss of virtue if revealed to vulgar and unpurified spirits. Hence they favoured the existence of an outer worship effective but imperfect for the profane, and an inner discipline for the initiate, and clothed their language in words and images which had equally a spiritual sense for the elect and a concrete sense for the mass of ordinary worshippers. The Vedic hymns were conceived and constructed on these principles."¹ When we find that this view is opposed not only to the modern views of European scholars but also to the traditional interpretations of Sāyaṇa and the system of Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā, the authority on Vedic interpretation, we must hesitate to follow the lead of Mr. Aurobindo Ghosh, however ingenious his point of view may be. It is not likely that the whole progress of Indian thought has been a steady falling away from the highest spiritual truths of the Vedic hymns. It is more in accordance with what is known of the general nature of human development, and easier to concede that the later religions and philosophies arose out of the crude suggestions and elementary moral ideas and spiritual aspirations of the early mind, than that they were a degradation of an original perfection.

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¹ Ārya, vol. i. p. 60.

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In interpreting the spirit of the Vedic hymns we propose to adopt the view of them accepted by the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, which came immediately after. These later works are a continuation and a development of the views of the hymns. While we find the progress from the worship of outward nature powers to the spiritual religion of the Upaniṣads easily intelligible according to the law of normal religious growth—man everywhere on earth starts with the external and proceeds to the internal—the Upaniṣads do not care for the early nature worship, but only develop the suggestions of the highest religion contained in the Vedas. This interpretation is in entire harmony with the modern historical method and the scientific theory of early human culture, and accords well with the classic Indian view as put forth by Sāyaṇa.

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PHILOSOPHICAL TENDENCIES

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In the Ṛg-Veda we have the impassioned utterances of primitive but poetic souls which seek some refuge from the obstinate questionings of sense and outward things. The hymns are philosophical to the extent that they attempt to explain the mysteries of the world not by means of any superhuman insight or extraordinary revelation, but by the light of unaided reason. The mind revealed in the Vedic hymns is not of any one type. There were poetic souls who simply contemplated the beauties of the sky and the wonders of the earth, and eased their musical souls of their burden by composing hymns. The Indo-Iranian gods of Dyaus, Varuṇa, Uṣas, Mitra, etc., were the productions of this poetic consciousness. Others of a more active temperament tried to adjust the world to their own purposes. Knowledge of the world was useful to them as the guide of life. And in the period of conquest and battle, such useful utilitarian deities as Indra were conceived. The genuine philosophical impulse, the desire to know and understand the world for its own sake, showed itself only at the end of this period of storm and stress. It was then that men sat down to doubt the gods they ignorantly worshipped and reflected on the mysteries of life. It is at this period that questions were put to which the mind of man could not give adequate answers. The Vedic poet exclaims: "I do not know what kind of thing I am; mysterious, bound, my mind wanders." Even though germs of true philosophy appear at a late stage, still the view of life reflected in the poetry and practice of the Vedic hymns is instructive. As legendary history precedes archæology, alchemy chemistry, and astrology astronomy, even so mythology and poetry precede philosophy and science. The impulse of philosophy finds its first expression in mythology and religion. In them we find the answers to the questions of ultimate existence, believed by the people in general. These happen to be products of imagination, where mythical causes are assumed to account for the actual world. As reason slowly gains ascendancy over fancy, an attempt is made to distinguish the permanent stuff from out of which the actual things of the world are made. Cosmological speculations take the place of mythical assumptions. The permanent elements of the world are deified, and thus cosmology becomes confused with religion. In the early stages of reflection as we have them in the Ṛg-Veda, mythology, cosmology and religion are found intermixed. It will be of interest to describe briefly the views of the hymns under the four heads of theology, cosmology, ethics and eschatology.

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THEOLOGY

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A religious growth of many centuries cannot be a simple and transparent creed admitting of easy definition and classification. A striking aspect of the hymns is their polytheistic character. A great many gods are named and worshipped. Yet some of the hymns shock us by their highly abstract philosophising, and from primitive polytheism to systematic philosophy it is a long, long way. Three strata of thought can be discerned in the religion of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda, which are naturalistic polytheism, monotheism and monism.

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An important point to be borne in mind in this discussion is that the word "deva" is so very elusive in its nature and is used to indicate many different things.¹ "Deva is one who gives to man."² God is deva because He gives the whole world. The learned man who imparts knowledge to fellow man is also a deva.³ The sun, the moon and the sky are devas because they give light to all creation. Father and mother and spiritual guides are also devas.¹ Even a guest is a deva. We have to take into account only that notion of deva which answers at least roughly to the modern conception of God. It then means bright.

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¹ The Nirukta says: "Devo dānād vā dīpanād vā dyotanād vā dyusthāno vā bhavati." vii. 15.

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² We may compare this with the English word "lady," which seems to have meant originally the kneader of the loaf. Lord has a somewhat similar origin—the guardian of the loaf.

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³ Vidvāṁso hi devāḥ.

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¹ Mātṛdevo bhava, pitṛdevo bhava, ācāryadevo bhava.

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The process of god-making in the factory of man's mind cannot be seen so clearly anywhere else as in the Rg-Veda. We have in it the freshness and splendour of the morning of man's mind still undulled by past custom or fixed routine. There is no such thing as a beginning in the history of ideas, and we have to start somewhere. We may begin with the identification of the Vedic gods in some of their aspects with certain forces of nature, and point out how they were gradually raised to moral and superhuman beings. The earliest seers of the Vedic hymns delighted in sights of nature in their own simple unconscious way. Being essentially of a poetic temperament, they saw the things of nature with such intensity of feeling and force of imagination that the things became suffused with souls. They knew what it was to love nature, and be lost in the wonders of dawn and sunrise, those mysterious processes which effect a meeting of the soul and nature. To them nature was a living presence with which they could hold communion. Some glorious aspects of nature became the windows of heaven, through which the divine looked down upon the godless earth. The moon and the stars, the sea and the sky, the dawn and the nightfall were regarded as divine. This worship of nature as such is the earliest form of Vedic religion.

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Soon cold reflection sets in. An unconscious effort to penetrate into the inner nature of things results. Man is busy making gods in his own image. The religion of the undeveloped man, the world over, has been a kind of anthropomorphism. We cannot acquiesce in the chaos of the physical world. We try to understand it in some way and arrive at some theory of life with the conviction that some hypothesis is better than none. Naturally we project our own volitional agency and explain phenomena by their spiritual causes.² We interpret all things on the analogy of our own nature and posit wills behind physical phenomena. The theory is not to be confused with animism, for it does not hold to a universal animation of nature. It is a sort of polytheism where striking phenomena of nature, of which India is so full, are deified. The religious instinct reveals itself in this way. In moments of deep religious feeling, when man is delivered from some imminent peril, or realises his utter dependence on the mighty forces of nature, he feels the reality of the presence of God. He hears the voice of God in the tempest and sees his hand in the stilling of the wave. So late as the period of the Stoics we meet with similar conceptions. "The Sun, Moon and Stars and Law and Men who have turned into Gods."¹ It is a good thing that the Vedic Aryan had faith in the reality of an unseen world. He had no doubt about it. Gods are. Naturalism and anthropomorphism seem to be the first stages of the Vedic religion.

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² As Taylor puts it : " The operations of the world seemed to be carried on by other spirits, just as the human body was held to live and act by virtue

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¹ Chrysippus. See Gilbert Murray's *Four Stages of Greek Religion*, p. 17.

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It is now a commonplace of history that the Vedic Aryans and the Iranians descended from the same stock and exhibit great affinities and resemblance. They came down from their common home into India and the Iran of the Zoroastrians, and in that central home they dwelt as one undivided race till the necessities of life, want of room, the spirit of adventure, obliged them to leave their motherland and wander in quest of new fields in different directions.² That is why we find so many affinities in the

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² Indians and the Iranians are said to belong to the larger family of Indo-Europeans, with their subdivisions of Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, Italic, Hellenic, Armenian races. From a comparison of the beliefs and practices of these people scholars infer a sort of Indo-European religion. Animism and magic, ancestor worship and belief in immortality are said to be the main elements of the Indo-European religion. Recent ethnologists, such as Ripley, seem to adopt a somewhat different classification of races. Some

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of its own inhabiting spirit-soul" (*Primitive Culture*). In his *Natural History of Religions*, Hume wrote: "There is a universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves. . . The unknown causes which continually employ their thoughts, appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought and reason and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men."

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ancient religions and philosophical ideas of India and Persia. Dr. Mills says: "The Avesta is nearer the Veda than the Veda is to its own epic Sanskrit." There is an underlying continuity of language. When the Aryans came to India through the Punjab they found the natives of India whom they called Dasyus opposing their free advance.¹ These Dasyus were of a dark complexion, eating beef and indulging in goblin worship. When the Aryans met them they desired to keep themselves aloof from them. It is this spirit of exclusiveness born of pride of race and superiority of culture that developed into the later caste spirit. The anxiety to keep their religion pure from contamination led the Aryans to collect together their own sacred literature. The word saṃhitā, which means "collection," suggests that the hymns of the Rg-Veda were collected at the period when the Aryans and the non-Aryans met on the soil of India. We shall begin our sketch of the Vedic gods with those Indo-Iranian ones held in common by the two sister races before their separation.

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¹ The details of the wanderings of those who first called themselves Aryans cannot be decided with any definiteness from the now available data. The Vedic hymns reveal a later stage of social life when Sanskrit was a spoken language and the Aryan race was split up into many branches. Nor are we prepared to admit that the Dravidians were the aborigines of India. The Dravidians seem to have come to India at a much earlier date than the Aryans, and had their civilisation well established in India before the coming of the Aryans. The Dravidians, it is true, adopted the Aryan forms of life, but in their turn they influenced the Aryan civilisation. The numerous tribes who still inhabit mountainous regions difficult of access were perhaps the original inhabitants of India.

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The feeling of the incompleteness of this world, the weakness of man, the need felt for a higher spirit, a guide, a friend, a support on which man could rest, to whom he could appeal in distress, is natural to the sick heart of man. At that early age nothing could answer to this feeling for the infinite so well as the boundless and brilliant firmament of heaven. The sun and the moon and the stars identify the Aryan race with the Teutonic or the Nordic. We have nothing to do with these here. The history of Indian thought commences only when the Aryans of Central Asia separated themselves into two groups, the one making through Afghanistan to India and the other spreading over the territory called the Iran.

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may change, storms break and clouds roll away, but the sky abides for ever. Dyaus¹ is not merely an Indo-Iranian deity, but an Indo-European one. It survives in Greece as Zeus, in Italy as Jupiter (Heavenly Father), and among the Teutonic tribes as Tyr and Tyi. Deva meant originally bright, and later was applied to all the bright ones, the sun, the sky, the stars, the dawn, the day, etc. It became a general term connoting the common features of all shining ones. The earth also was soon deified. Heaven and Earth at the beginning had perhaps only the physical aspects of vastness, breadth, productiveness.² The attributes ascribed to the Earth are such as “yielding honey,” “full of milk.” But very early Heaven and Earth became endowed with human qualities such as “not decaying,” “father” and “mother.” Moral attributes such as beneficence, omniscience and righteousness were also added.³ It may be that there has been steady advance from the physical to the personal and from the personal to the divine. Earth and Heaven, the first objects of worship the world over, though probably in the beginning they were looked upon as independent beings, soon entered into a marriage alliance. The Earth was looked upon as the fruitful mother, impregnated by Heaven. In the Homeric hymns the Earth is addressed as “Mother of Gods, the wife of the starry Heaven.”⁴ Earth and Heaven are the universal parents who give life to all creatures and grant them the means of subsistence. In the Ṛg-Veda they are generally addressed in the dual number as two beings forming but one concept, for all between, the sun, the dawn, the fire, the wind and the rain were their offspring. They are the parents of men and gods.⁵ As the number of gods increased the question arose as to who made Heaven and Earth. “He was indeed among the gods the cleverest workman, who produced the brilliant ones (Heaven and Earth) that gladden all things; he who measures the two bright ones by his wisdom and establishes them on everlasting supports.”¹ This creative power is assigned to Agni,² Indra,³ or Soma.⁴ Other gods also come in for this honour.⁵

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¹ Div, to shine.

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² i. 160. 2; i. 187. 5; iv. 56. 3; vi. 70. 1-2.

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³ i. 159. 1; i. 160. 1; iv. 56. 2; vi. 70. 6.

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⁴ See Max Müller: *India; What can it teach us*? p. 156.

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⁵ i. 185. 4; i. 159. 1-2; i. 106. 3; iii. 3. 11; iv. 56. 2; vi. 17. 7; vii 53. 1-2; ix. 85. 12; x. 1. 7; x. 35. 3; x. 64. 14; x. 65. 8; x. 11. 9.

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¹ R.V., i. 160. 4; see also iv. 56. 3.

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² i. 67. 3.

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³ x. 89. 4.

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⁴ ix. 101.15.

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⁵ iii. 31. 12.

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Varuṇa is the god of the sky. The name is derived from the root “var,” to “cover” or “compass.” He is identical with the Greek Ouranos and the Ahuramazda of the Avesta. His physical origin is manifest. He is the coverer or the enfolder. He covers the whole starry expanse of heaven “as with a robe, with all the creatures thereof and their dwellings.”⁶ Mitra is his constant companion. Varuṇa and Mitra, when used together, express night and day, darkness and light. Varuṇa’s figure is steadily transformed and idealised till he becomes the most moral god of the Vedas. He watches over the world, punishes the evildoers and forgives the sins of those who implore his pardon. The sun is his eye, the sky is his garment and the storm is his breath.⁷ Rivers flow by his command⁸; the sun shines, the star and the moon are in their courses for fear of him.⁹ By his law heaven and earth are held apart. He upholds the physical and the moral order. He is no capricious god, but a “dhṛtavrata,” one of fixed resolve. Other gods obey his orders. He is omniscient, and as such knows the flight of the birds in the sky, the path of the ships on the ocean and the course of the wind. Not a sparrow can fall without his knowledge. He is the supreme God, the God of gods, harsh to the guilty and gracious to the penitent. He conforms to the eternal law of the moral world which he has established. Yet in his mercy he is willing to forgive those who offend against him. “He is merciful even to him who has committed sin.”¹⁰ In almost all the hymns to Varuṇa we find prayers for the forgiveness of sin, filled with confessions of guilt and repentance,¹ which show that the Aryan poets had a sense of the burden of sin and prayer.

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⁶ viii. 41.

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⁷ vii. 87. 2.

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⁸ i. 24. 8; ii. 28. 4; vii. 87. 5.

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⁹ i. 24. 10; i. 25. 6; i. 44. 14; ii. 14; ii. 28. 8; iii. 54. 18; viii. 25. 2.

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¹⁰ vii. 87. 7.

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¹ The following hymn to Varuṇa translated by Muir into verse, vol. v. O.S.T., p. 64, though from the Atharva-Veda (iv. 16. 1-5), brings out the high conception of God cherished by the Vedic Aryans:

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The theism of the Vaiṣṇavas and the Bhāgavatas, with its emphasis on bhakti, is to be traced to the Vedic worship of Varuṇa, with its consciousness of sin and trust in divine forgiveness. Professor Macdonell says that "Varuṇa's character resembles that of the divine ruler in a monotheistic belief of an exalted type."²

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² Vedic Mythology, p. 3.

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The law of which Varuṇa is the custodian is called the Ṛta. Ṛta literally means "the course of things." It stands for law in general and the immanence of justice. This conception must have been originally suggested by the regularity of the movements of sun, moon and stars, the alternations of day and of night, and of the seasons.

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The mighty Lord on high, our deeds, as if at hand espies:
The gods know all men do, though men would fain their deeds disguise.
Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place,
Or hides him in his secret cell—the gods his movements trace.
Wherever two together plot, and deem they are alone,
King Varuṇa is there, a third, and all their schemes are known.
This earth is his, to him belong those vast and boundless skies;
Both seas within him rest, and yet in that small pool he lies.
Whoever far beyond the sky should think his way to wing,
He could not there elude the grasp of Varuṇa the king.
His spies descending from the skies glide all this world around,
Their thousand eyes all-scanning sweep to earth's remotest bound.
Whate'er exists in heaven and earth, whate'er beyond the skies,
Before the eyes of Varuṇa, the king, unfolded lies.
The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes:
He wields this universal frame, as gamester throws his dice.
Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, O God, the bad to snare,—
All liars let them overtake, but all the truthfui spare."

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Again: "How can I get near to Varuṇa? will he accept my offering without displeasure? When shall I, with a quiet mind see him propitiated?"

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"I ask, O Varuṇa, wishing to know this my sin; I go to ask the wise, the sages, all tell me the same: Varuṇa it is who is angry with thee."

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"Was it for an old sin, O Varuṇa, that thou wishest to destroy thy friend who always praises thee? Tell me, thou unconquerable Lord, and I will quickly turn to thee with praise, freed from sin."

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"Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from those which we committed with our own bodies."

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"It is not our own doing, Varuṇa, it was a slip; an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, thoughtlessness."

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Rta denotes the order of the world. Everything that is ordered in the universe has Rta for its principle. It corresponds to the universals of Plato.¹ The world of experience is a shadow or reflection of the Rta, the permanent reality which remains unchanged in all the welter of mutation. The universal is prior to the particular, and so the Vedic seer thinks that Rta exists before the manifestation of all phenomena. The shifting series of the world are the varying expressions of the constant Rta. So Rta is called the father of all. "The Maruts come from afar from the seat of the Rta."² Viṣṇu is the embryo of the Rta.³ Heaven and earth are what they are by reason of the Rta.⁴ The tendency towards the mystic conception of an unchanging reality shows its first signs here. The real is the unchanging law. What is, is an unstable show, an imperfect copy. The real is one without parts and changes, while the many shift and pass. Soon this cosmic order becomes the settled will of a supreme god, the law of morality and righteousness as well. Even the gods cannot transgress it. We see in the conception of Rta a development from the physical to the divine. Rta originally meant the "established route of the world, of the sun, moon and stars, morning and evening, day and night." Gradually it became the path of morality to be followed by man and the law of righteousness observed even by gods. "The dawn follows the path of Rta, the right path; as if she knew them before. She never oversteps the regions. The sun follows the path of Rta."⁵ The whole universe is founded on Rta and moves in it.⁶ This conception of Rta reminds us of Wordsworth's invocation to duty.

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¹ Hegel characterises the categories or universals of logic as "God before the creation of the world or any planet." I owe this reference to Professor J. S. Mackenzie. The Chinese sage Lao Tsū recognises a cosmic order or the Tao, which serves as the foundation for his ethics, philosophy and religion.

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² iv. 21. 3.

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³ i. 156. 3.

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⁴ x. 121. 1.

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⁵ i. 24. 8, Heraclitus says "Helios (the sun) will not overstep the bounds."

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⁶ iv. 23. 9.

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Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

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What law is in the physical world, that virtue is in the moral world. The Greek conception of the moral life as a harmony or an ordered whole is suggested here. Varuṇa, who was first the keeper of the physical order, becomes the custodian of the moral order, Ṛtasya gopa and the punisher of sin. The prayer to the gods is in many cases for keeping us in the right path. "O Indra, lead us on the path of Ṛta, on the right path over all evils." ¹

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¹ x. 133. 6.

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So soon as the conception of Ṛta was recognised there was a change in the nature of gods. The world is no more a chaos representing the blind fury of chance elements, but is the working of a harmonious purpose. This faith gives us solace and security whenever unbelief tempts us and confidence in ourselves is shattered. Whatever might happen, we feel that there is a law of righteousness in the moral world answering to the beautiful order of nature. As sure as the sun rises to-morrow virtue will triumph. Ṛta can be trusted.

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Mitra is the companion of Varuṇa and is generally invoked along with him. He represents sometimes the sun and sometimes the light. He is also an all-seeing, truth-loving god. Mitra and Varuṇa are joint-keepers of the Ṛta and forgivers of sin. Gradually, Mitra comes to be associated with the morning light and Varuṇa with the night-sky. Varuṇa and Mitra are called the Ādityas, or the sons of Aditi, along with Aryaman and Bhaga.

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Sūrya is the sun. He has some ten hymns addressed to him. The worship of the sun is natural to the human mind. It is an essential part of the Greek religion. Plato idealised sun-worship in the *Republic*. To him the sun was the symbol of the Good. In Persia we have sun-worship. The sun, the author of all light and life in the world, has supernatural powers assigned to him. He is the life of "all that moveth and standeth." He is all seeing, the spy of the world. He rouses men to perform their activities, dispels darkness and gives light. "Sūrya is rising, to pace both worlds, looking down on men, protector of all that travel or stay, beholding right and wrong among men." ² Sūrya becomes the creator of the world and its governor.

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² R. V., vii. 60.

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Savitṛ, celebrated in eleven entire hymns, is also a solar deity. He is described as golden-eyed, golden-handed and golden-tongued. He is sometimes distinguished from the Sun,¹ though often identified with him. Savitṛ represents not only the bright sun of the golden day, but also the invisible sun of night. He has a lofty moral side, being implored by the repentant sinner for the forgiveness of sin: "Whatever offence we may have committed against the heavenly host, through feebleness of understanding, or through weakness or through pride or through human nature, O Savitṛ, take from us this sin."² The Gāyatrī hymn is addressed to Sūrya in the form of Savitṛ: "Let us meditate on that adorable splendour of Savitṛ; may he enlighten our minds." The oft-quoted hymn from the Yajur-Veda, "O God Savitṛ, the Creator of All, remove the obstructions and grant the blessings," is addressed to Savitṛ.

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¹ R.V., vii. 63.

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² iv. 54. 3.

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Sūrya in the form of Viṣṇu supports all the worlds.³ Viṣṇu is the god of three strides. He covers the earth, heaven and the highest worlds visible to mortals. None can reach the limits of his greatness. "We can from the earth know two of thy spaces, thou alone, O Viṣṇu, knowest thine own highest abode."⁴ Viṣṇu holds a subordinate position in the Ṛg-Veda, though he has a great future before him. The basis of Vaiṣṇavism is, however, found in the Ṛg-Veda, where Viṣṇu is described as bṛhat-śarīrah, great in body, or having the world for his body, pratyetya āhavam, he who comes in response to the invitation of the devotees.⁵ He is said to have traversed thrice the earth spaces for the sake of man in distress.⁶

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³ i. 21. 154.

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⁴ i. 22. 18; vii. 59. 1-2.

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⁵ i. 155. 6.

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⁶ Mānave bādhitāya, iv. 6.

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Pūṣan is another solar god. He is evidently a friend of man, being a pastoral god and the guardian of cattle. He is the god of wayfarers and husbandmen.

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Ruskin says: "There is no solemnity so deep to a rightly thinking creature as that of the dawn." The boundless dawn from which flash forth every morning light and life becomes the goddess Uṣas, the Greek Eos, the brilliant maid of morning loved by the Aśvins, and the sun, but vanishing before the latter as he tries to embrace her with his golden rays.

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The Aśvins are invoked in about fifty hymns and in parts of many others.¹ They are inseparable twins, the bright lords of brilliance and lustre, strong and agile and fleet as eagles. They are the children of Heaven, and the Dawn is their sister. It is supposed that the phenomenon of twilight is their material basis. That is why we have two Aśvins corresponding to the dawn and the dusk. They gradually become the physicians of gods and men, wonder-workers, protectors of conjugal love and life and the deliverers of the oppressed from all kinds of suffering.

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¹ Aśvins are literally horsemen.

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We have already mentioned Aditi from whom the several gods called Ādityas are born. Aditi literally means "unbound or unlimited." It seems to be a name for the invisible, the infinite which surrounds us on all sides, and also stands for the endless expanse beyond the earth, the clouds and the sky. It is the immense substratum of all that is here and also beyond. "Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the intermediate region, Aditi is father and mother and son, Aditi is all the gods and the five tribes, Aditi is whatever has been born, Aditi is whatever shall be born."² Here we have the anticipation of a universal all-embracing, all-producing nature itself, the immense potentiality or the prakṛti of the Sāṃkhya philosophy. It corresponds to Anaximander's Infinite.

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² R.V., i. 89.

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An important phenomenon of nature raised to a deity is Fire. Agni³ is second in importance only to Indra, being addressed in at least 200 hymns. The idea of Agni arose from the scorching sun, which by its heat kindled inflammable stuff. It came from the clouds as lightning. It has also its origin in flintstone.⁴ It comes from fire sticks.⁵ Mātariśvan, like Prometheus, is supposed to have brought fire back from the sky and entrusted it to the keeping of the Bhṛgus.⁶ The physical aspects are evident in the descriptions of Agni as possessing a tawny beard, sharp jaws and burning teeth. Wood or ghee is his food. He shines like the sun dispelling the darkness of night. His path is black when he invades the forests and his voice is like the thunder of heaven. He is dhūmaketu, having smoke for his banner. "O Agni, accept this log which I offer to thee, blaze up brightly and send up thy sacred smoke, touch the topmost heavens with thy mane and mix with the beams of the sun."¹ Fire is thus seen to dwell not only on earth in the hearth and the altar but also in the sky and the atmosphere, as the sun and the dawn and as lightning in the clouds. He soon becomes a supreme god, stretching out heaven and earth. As the concept grew more and more abstract it also became more and more sublime. He becomes the mediator between gods and men, the helper of all. "O Agni, bring hither Varuṇa to our offering. Bring Indra from the skies, the Maruts from the air."² "I hold Agni to be my father. I hold him to be my kinsman, my brother and also my friend."³

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³ Latin Ignis.

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⁴ ii. 12. 3.

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⁵ Sanskrit araṇis.

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⁶ The name of a clan.

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¹ R.V., ii. 6.

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² R.V., x. 70. 11.

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³ R.V., x. 7. 3.

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Soma, the god of inspiration, the giver of immortal life, is analogous to the Haoma of the Avesta and Dionysos of Greece, the god of the wine and the grape. All these are the cults of the intoxicants. Miserable man requires something or other to drown his sorrows in. When he takes hold of an intoxicating drink for the first time, a thrill of delight possesses him. He is mad, no doubt, but he thinks it is a divine madness. What we call spiritual vision, sudden illumination, deeper insight, larger charity and wider understanding—all these are the accompaniments of an inspired state of the soul. No wonder the drink that elevates the spirit becomes divine. Whitney observes: "The simple-minded Aryan people, whose whole religion was a worship of the wonderful powers and phenomena of nature, had no sooner perceived that the liquid had power to elevate the spirits and produce a temporary frenzy under the influence of which the individual was prompted to and capable of deeds beyond his natural powers, than they found in it something divine; it was to their apprehension a god, endowing those into whom it entered with god-like powers; the plant which afforded it became to them the king of plants, the process of preparing was a holy sacrifice; the instruments used therefor were sacred. The high antiquity of this cultus is attested by the references to it found occurring in the Persian Avesta; it seems, however, to have received a new impulse on Indian territory."¹ Soma is not completely personalised. The plant and the juice are so vividly present to the poet's mind that he cannot easily deify them. The hymns addressed to Soma were intended to be sung while the juice was being pressed out of the plant. "O Soma, poured out for Indra to drink, flow on purely in a most sweet and exhilarating current."² In viii. 48. 3 the worshipper exclaims: "We have drunk the Soma, we have become immortal, we have entered into light, we have known the gods." This confusion of spiritual ecstasy with physical intoxication is not peculiar to the Vedic age. William James tells us that the drunken consciousness is a bit of the mystic consciousness. It is believed that we can attain the divine through physical intoxication. Soma gradually acquires medicinal powers, helping the blind to see and the lame to walk.³ The following beautiful hymn to Soma points out how important a place he occupies in the affections of the Vedic Aryans.

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¹ J.A.O.S., iii. 292.

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² ix. 1.

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³ vii. 68. 2, and x. 25. 11.

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Where there is eternal light, in the world, where the sun is placed, in that immortal, imperishable world, place me, O Soma.
Where the son of Vivasvat reigns as King, where the secret place of heaven is, where these mighty waters are, make me immortal.
Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where the worlds are radiant, there make me immortal.
Where wishes and desires are, where the bowl of the bright Soma is, where there is food and rejoicing, there make me immortal.
Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me immortal.⁴

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⁴ S.B.E., Vedic Hymns, part i. See Gilbert Murray's translation of the Bacchae of Euripides, p. 20.

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In the hymn to Soma just quoted there is a reference to the son of Vivasvat, who is the Yama of the Ṛg-Veda answering to the Yima, the son of Vivanhvant of the Avesta. There are three hymns addressed to Yama. He is the chief of the dead, not so much a god as a ruler of the dead. He was the first of mortals to die and find his way to the other world, the first to tread the path of the fathers.¹ Later he acts as the host receiving new-comers. He is the king of that kingdom, for he has the longest experience of it. He is sometimes invoked as the god of the setting sun.² In the Brāhmaṇas Yama becomes the judge and chastiser of men. But in the Ṛg-Veda he is yet only their king. Yama illustrates the truth of the remark which Lucian puts into the mouth of Heraclitus : " What are men ? Mortal gods. What are gods ? Immortal men."

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¹ Pitṛyāna, x. 2. 7.

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² x. 14.

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Parjanya was the Aryan sky god. He seems to have become Indra after the Aryans entered India, for Indra is unknown to the other members of the Aryan family. In the Vedas Parjanya is another name for the sky. " The Earth is the mother and I am the son of the Earth, Parjanya is the father. May he help us."³ In the Atharva-Veda Earth is called the wife of Parjanya.⁴ Parjanya is the god of cloud and rain.⁵ He rules as god over the whole world; all creatures rest in him ; he is the life of all that moves and rests.⁶ There are also passages where the word Parjanya is used for cloud or rain.⁷ Max Müller is of opinion that Parjanya is identical with the Lithuanian god of thunder called Perkunas.⁸

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³ A.V., xii. 1. 12.

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⁴ xii. 1. 42.

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⁵ R.V., v. 83.

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⁶ R.V., vii. 101. 6.

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⁷ See R.V., i. 164. 5; vii. 61.

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⁸ India; What can it teach us? Lect. VI.

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Of all the phenomena of nature which arouse the feeling of awe and terror, nothing can challenge comparison with thunder storms. " Yes, when I send thunder and lightning," says Indra, " then you believe in me." Judging from the hymns addressed to him, Indra is the most popular god of the Vedas. When the Aryans entered India they found that, as at present, their prosperity was a mere gamble in rain. The rain god naturally becomes the national god of the Indo-Aryans. Indra is the god of the atmospheric phenomena, of the blue sky. He is the Indian Zeus. His naturalistic origin is clear. He is born of waters and the cloud. He wields the thunder-bolt, and conquers darkness. He brings us light and life, gives us vigour and freshness. Heaven bows before him and the earth trembles at his approach. Gradually Indra's connexion with the sky and the thunder-storms is forgotten. He becomes the divine spirit, the ruler of all the world and all the creatures, who sees and hears everything, and inspires men with their best thoughts and impulses.¹ The god of the thunder-storm vanquishing the demons of drought, and darkness becomes the victorious god of battles of the Aryans in their struggles with the natives. The times were of great activity, and the people were engaged in an adventure of conquest and domination. He will have nothing to do with the native peoples of alien faiths. "The hero-god who as soon as born shielded the gods, before whose might the two worlds shook—that, ye people, is Indra; who made fast the earth and the heaving mountains, measured the space of air, upheld the heaven—that, ye people, is Indra; who slew the serpent and freed the seven streams, rescued the cows, the pounder in battle—that, ye people, is Indra; the dread god of whom ye doubting ask, where is he, and sneer, he is not, he who sweeps away the enemies' possessions, have faith in him—that, ye people, is Indra; in whose might stand horses, cattle and armed hosts, to whom both lines of battle call—that, ye people, is Indra; without whose aid men never conquer, whose arrow little thought of slays the wicked—that, ye people, is Indra."² This champion-god acquires the highest divine attributes, rules over the sky, the earth, the waters and the mountains,³ and gradually displaces Varuṇa from his supreme position in the Vedic pantheon. Varuṇa, the majestic, the just and the serene, the constant in purpose, he is not fit for the struggling, conquering, active times on which the Aryans have entered. So we hear the echo of this great revolution in the Vedic world in some hymns.⁴

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¹ viii. 37. 3; viii. 78. 5.

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² R.V., ii. 12.

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³ x. 89. 10.

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⁴ (Varuṇa speaks) : "I am the king; mine is the lordship. All the gods are subject to me, the universal life-giver, and follow Varuṇa's ordi-

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Indra had also to battle with other gods worshipped by the different tribes settled in India. There were worshippers of waters,¹ the Aśvattha tree.² Many of the demons with whom Indra fought were the tribal gods such as Vṛtra, the serpent.³ Another foe of Indra, in the period of the Ṛg-Veda, was Kṛṣṇa, the deified hero of a tribe called the Kṛṣṇas. The verse reads: "The fleet Kṛṣṇa lived on the banks of the Amśumatī (Jumna) river with ten thousand troops. Indra of his own wisdom became cognisant of this loud-yelling chief. He destroyed the marauding host for our benefit."⁴ This is the interpretation suggested by Sāyaṇa, and the story has some interest in connection with the Kṛṣṇa cult. The later Purāṇas speak of the opposition between Indra and Kṛṣṇa. It may be that Kṛṣṇa is the god of the pastoral tribe which was conquered by Indra in the Ṛg-Veda period, though at the time of the Bhagavadgītā he recovered much lost ground and got reinforced by becoming identified with the Vāsudeva of the Bhāgavatas and the Viṣṇu of the Vaiṣṇavas. It is this miscellaneous origin and history that make him the author of the Bhagavadgītā, the personation of the

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¹ x. 9. 1-3.

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² R.V., i. 135. 8.

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³ R.V., vi. 33. 2; vi. 29. 6.

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⁴ viii. 85. 13-15.

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nances. I rule in men's highest sanctuary—I am king Varuṇa—I, O Indra, am Varuṇa, and mine are the two wide, deep, blessed worlds. A wise maker, I created all the beings; Heaven and earth are by me preserved. I made the flowing waters to swell. I established in their sacred seat the heavens. I, the holy Āditya, spread out the tripartite universe" (heaven, earth and atmosphere).

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(Indra speaks): "I am invoked by the steed-possessing men when pressed hard in battle; I am the mighty one who stirs up the fight and whirls up the dust, in my overwhelming strength. All that have I done, nor can the might of all the gods restrain me, the unconquered; when I am exhilarated by libations and prayers, then quake both boundless worlds."

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The Ṛṣi speaks: "That thou didst all these things, all beings know; and now thou hast proclaimed it to Varuṇa, O Ruler! Thee Indra men praise as the slayer of Vṛtra; it was thou who didst let loose the imprisoned waters" (iv. 42).

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"I now say farewell, to the father, the Asura; I go from him to whom no sacrifices are offered, to him to whom men sacrifice—in choosing Indra, I give up the father though I have lived with him many years in friendship. Agni, Varuṇa and Soma must give way; the power goes to another. I see it come" (x. 124).

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Absolute, as well as the cowherd playing the flute on the banks of the Jumna.¹

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¹ Later on, the Kṛṣṇa cult became superior to the lower forms of worship of snakes and serpents and to the Vedic worship of Indra. Sister Nivedita writes: "Kṛṣṇa conquers the snake Kālīya and leaves his own footprint on his head. Here is the same struggle that we can trace in the personality of Śiva as Nāgesvara, between the new devotional faith and the old traditional worship of snakes and serpents. He persuades the shepherds to abandon the sacrifice to Indra. Here he directly overrides the older Vedic gods, who, as in some parts of the Himalayas to-day, seem to know nothing of the interposition of Brahmā" (Footfalls of Indian History, p. 212).

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By the side of Indra are several minor deities representing other atmospheric phenomena, Vāta or Vāyu, the wind, the Maruts, the terrible storm-gods, and Rudra the howler. Of wind a poet says: "Where was he born and whence did he spring, the life of the gods and the germ of the world? That god moves about, where he listeth, his voices are heard, but he is not to be seen."² Vāta is an Indo-Iranian god. The Maruts are the deifications of the great storms so common in India, "when the air is darkened by dust and clouds, when in a moment the trees are stripped of their foliage, their branches shivered, their stems snapped, when the earth seems to reel and the mountains shake and the rivers are lashed into foam and fury."³ Maruts are powerful and destructive usually, but sometimes they are also kind and beneficent. They lash the world from end to end, or clear the air and bring the rain.⁴ They are the comrades of Indra and sons of Dyaus. Indra is sometimes called the eldest of the Maruts. On account of their fierce aspects they are considered to be the sons of Rudra the militant God.⁵ Rudra has a very subordinate position in the Rg-Veda, being celebrated only in three entire hymns. He holds a thunder-bolt in his arms and discharges lightning shafts from the skies. Later he becomes Śiva the benignant, with a whole tradition developed round him.⁶

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² x. 168. 34.

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³ Max Müller: *India; What can it teach us?* p. 180.

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⁴ R.V., i. 37. 11; i. 64. 6; i. 86. 10; ii. 34. 12.

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⁵ i. 64. 2.

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⁶ R.V., vii. 46. 3; i. 114. 10; i. 114. 1.

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We also come across certain goddesses similarly developed. Uṣas and Aditi are goddesses. The river Sindhu is celebrated as a goddess in one hymn,¹ and Sarasvatī, first the name of a river, gradually becomes the goddess of learning.² Vāk is the goddess of speech. Araṇyānī is the goddess of the forest.³ The later Śākta systems utilise the goddesses of the Ṛg-Veda. The Vedic Aryan prayed to the Śakti or the energy of God, as he meditated on the adorable divine light that burnt up all dross: "Come thou, O goddess, that granteth our prayers, Thou art the unperishing, the equal of Brahman."⁴

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¹ x. 75. 2, 4, 6.

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² vi. 61.

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³ x. 146.

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⁴ Āyātu varadā devī, akṣaram brahmasammitam. Tait. Ār., x. 34. 52.

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When thought advanced from the material to the spiritual, from the physical to the personal, it was easy to conceive of abstract deities. Most of such deities occur in the last book of the Ṛg-Veda, thus indicating their relatively late origin. We have Manyu,⁵ Śraddhā,⁶ etc. Certain qualities associated with the true conception of god are deified. Tvaṣṭṛ, sometimes identified with Savitṛ,⁷ is "the maker" or the constructor of the world. He forged Indra's thunder-bolt, sharpened the axe of Brahmaṇaspati, made the cups out of which the gods drink Soma, and gave shape to all living things. Brahmaṇaspati is a very late god, belonging to the period when sacrifices began to come into vogue. Originally the lord of prayer, he soon became the god of sacrifices. We see in him the transition between the spirit of the pure Vedic religion and the later Brāhmanism.⁸

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⁵ Wrath, x. 83. 4

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⁶ Faith, x. 151.

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⁷ iii. 55. 19.

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⁸ Roth remarks: "All the gods whose names are compounded with pati (lord of) must be reckoned among the more recent. They were the products of reflection." This is, however, incorrect as a general statement. Cf. Vāstoṣpati. I owe this information to Professor Keith.

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Linked texts (5)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Nirukta — Yāska, Sanskrit
Taittirīyopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Taittirīyāraṇyaka — Sanskrit