Professor Williams says[1] "that the deified forces addressed in the Vedic hynıns were probably not represented by images or idols in the Vedic period, though doubtless the early worshippers clothed their gods with human forms in their own imaginations." Professor Müller[2] speaks more positively: "The religion of the Veda knows of no idols. The worship of idols in India is a secondary formation, a later degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal gods." The guarded language of Professor Williams seems to be better suited to the facts, as far as they are known, for Dr. Bollenson[3] speaks quite as strongly on the other side. He writes, “From the common appellation of the gods as divo naras, ‘men of the sky,' or simply naras, men,' and from the epithet nripesas, 'having the form of men,' who may conclude that the Indians did not merely in imagination assign human forms to their gods, but also represented them in a sensible manner. Thus a painted image of Rudra (Rig Veda, ii, 33, 9) is described with strong limbs, many-formed, awful, brown, he is painted with shining colours.'” “Still clearer appears the reference to representations in the form of an image. “I now pray to the gods of these (Maruts).' Here it seems that the Maruts are distinguished from their gods, i.e., their images. “There is in the oldest language a word, 'Sandris,' which properly denotes 'an image of the gods.'”
We shall now proceed to the consideration in detail of the deities as described in the Vedas.
