Hindu Medicine c8.77

c8.77

The powers within man and without, in Hinduism retain the archaic religious character of personalized divinities to whom the Vedic hymns are addressed, whenever man approaches them with prayer and propitiation. For the Hindu mind, there is no doubt whatever that no crucial antagonism exists between the personal and impersonal concept of one and the same suprahuman entity. Personalization is a matter of purpose and convenience in ritual and practice; it is an approach intrinsic in the magic-working and devotional attitude of priest and worshipper, and one appropriate to its ends. The divine powers, however, lose nothing of their dignity through being treated as impersonal entities or energies, whenever this aspect of their essence suits abstract thought and speculative contemplation. This twofold aspect of the suprahuman powers in man and the universe is fully developed in Vedic philosophy.