Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c9.71.8

c9.71.8

as Sūrya sways the whole universe (*ekaḥ Suryaḥ viśvamanu prabhūtaḥ*); as Ushā, reveals all this. The One became the Many (*Ekaṁ vā idaṁ vi babhūva sarvam*). VIII, 30, 1 states: “Among you, O gods, there is none that is small, none that is young: you all are great indeed.” This is the famous hymn to “all the gods”, *Viśve Devas*, representing a more advanced stage of thought than the hymns to individual deities. But even where an individual god is worshipped, he is as good as all the gods to the worshipper. As Max Müller points out [*Ancient Sanskrit Literature*, p. 533], "it would be easy to find, in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in which every single god is represented as supreme and absolute." It will thus appear that the apparently different deities like Varuṇa, Indra, Sūrya, Savitṛi, and Agni are severally described in strains more suitable to the supreme deity than to subaltern divinities exercising a limited dominion, as having created and as sustaining heaven and earth, and as rulers of the Universe. The notion of particular gods is expanded and all divine attributes are ascribed to particular objects of worship, while the names like Viśvakarmā or Prajāpati do not designate any limited function but the more general and abstract notion of divine power operating in the creation and maintenance of the universe.