Page:The religions of India.djvu/41

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA.

---

I.

THE VEDIC RELIGIONS.

THE RIG-YEDA.

General view of Vedic literature. — Its age and successive formation ; priority of the Hymns of the Rig- Veda. — Principal divinities of the Hymns : the World and its objects, Heaven and Earth, the Sun,

Moon, and Stars. — Agni and Soma. — Indra, the Maruts, E.udra, Vajoi Parjanya. — Brihaspati and Vac. — Varuna. — Aditi and the Adityas. — The Solar divinities : Surya, Savitri, Vishnu, Pushan. — Ushas, the Agvins, Tvashtri, the Ribhus. — Yama, the Pitris and the Future Life. — Abstract personifications and mythical figures. — Absence of a hierarchy and a classification of the Gods. — Way in ehich the Myths have been treated in the Hymns. — Monotheistic conceptions : Prajapati, Vi9vakarman, Svayambhu, &c. — Pantheistic cosmo-

gony : Purusha, the primordial substance, no eschatology. — Piety and morality ; co-existence of baser forms of belief and practice, as in part preserved in the Atharva-Veda. — Cultus: speculations regarding sacrifice and prayer : the rita and the brahman. — Essentially sacerdotal character of this religion.

The most ancient documents we possess connected with the religions of India are the collections of writings called the Vedas. These are sometimes reckoned three in number and sometimes four, according as the reference is to the collections themselves or to the nature of their contents; and of these two modes of reckoning, the second is the more ancient.^[1] One of the oldest divisions of the mantras,

1. Aitar. Br., v. 32, i ; Taittir. Br., ill. 10, ii, 5 ; Catap. Br., v. 5, 5, 10.