In many respects the nature of the idea of the divine, as entertained by the Rishis of the Rig-Veda, is still matter for discussion. In the chapter on Vedic gods such particulars as can be ascertained will be given. Roughly speaking, the religion is a cult of departmental gods, originally, in certain cases, forces of Nature, but endowed with moral earnestness. As to fetishism in the Vedas the opinions of the learned are divided. M. Bergaigne[1] looks on the whole ritual as, practically, an organised fetishism, employed to influence gods of a far higher and purer character. Mr. Max Müller[2] remarks, "that stones, bones, shells, herbs, and all the other so-called fetishes, are simply absent in the old hymns, though they appear in more modern hymns, particularly those of the Atharva-Veda. When artificial objects are mentioned and celebrated in the Rig-Veda, they are only such as might be praised even by Wordsworth or Tennyson—chariots, bows, quivers, axes, drums, sacrificial vessels, and similar objects. They never assume any individual character; they are simply mentioned as useful or precious, it may be as sacred."
When the existence of fetish "herbs" is denied by Mr. Max Müller, he does not, of course, forget Soma, that divine juice. It is also to be noted that in modern India, as Mr. Max Müller himself observes, Sir Alfred Lyall finds that "the husbandman prays to his plough and the fisher to his net," these objects being, at present, fetishes. In opposition to Mr, Max
