ages before the emigration of the Aryans to Europe. Prajapati, who was represented as the father of the gods, the lord of all living creatures, gradually received exceptional human homage. There was also Aditi, who appears under various guises, being, in one passage of the Rig Veda, identified with all the deities, with men, with all that has been and shall be born, and with air and heaven. In this character she corresponded to the Greek Zeus;
Ζεὺς ἐστὶν αἰθήρ, Ζεὺς δὲ γῆ, Ζεὺς δ᾽ οὐρανός,
Ζεύς τοι τὰ πάντα χὤτι τῶνδ᾽ ὑπέρτερον,[1]
and to the Latin Jupiter :
Iupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris.[2]
But there appears again to have been even a more exalted concept of a divinity who was inexpressible and who could only be described by a periphrasis. He was bright and beautiful and great. He was One, though the poets called Him by many names.
(
Indic characters)
एकं सद् विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति
Before there was anything, before there was either death or immortality, before there was any distinction between day and night, there was that One. It breathed breathless by itself. Other than it nothing has since been. Then was darkness, everything in the beginning was hidden in gloom, all was like the ocean, without a light. Then that germ which was covered by the husk, the One, was produced.[3]
Guru Nanak, as we shall see, gave expansion to this conception of the one God :—
- ↑ Aesch. Frag.
- ↑ Lucan, Pharsalia ix.
- ↑ Rig Veda, X, 129. Tacitus indicates one God worshipped under different names by the Germans, and only perceived by the light of faith: 'Deorum nominibus appellant secretum illud quod sola reverentia vident.' It may be here noticed that Tacitus' account of Germany and its people is much more trustworthy than that of Caesar, who was a less philosophical writer. Caesar states that the Germans worshipped the sun, fire, and the moon, and them only.
