2 34. The Religion of the Veda
“ thou art the That,” of the Chandogya Upanishad. Lest some one should suspect this to be a mere blundering thought for the nonce, a kind of freak or sport of mental rumination, the same Dirghatamas hymn contains the idea several times more; for instance in stanza 6:
“ In ignorance do I ask here them that haply know, Who did support the six: regions of the world I? What was, forsooth, this one unborn thing ” i
The tenth book of the Rig-Veda contains the famous creation hymn (10.129). This remarkable production has always interested Sanskritists pro- foundly; it has also passed over into the general literature of religion and philosophy. That great and sober critic, the late Professor William D. Whitney, remarked anent it in 1882, that the unlimited praises which had been bestowed upon it, as philosophy and as poetry, were well-nigh nauseating.1 And yet,
twelve years later, in 1894, Deussen, who, I am sure, is not trying to contradict Whitney, breaks out into new praise, more ecstatic than ever: “ In its noble simplicity, in the loftiness of its philosophic vision it is possibly the most admirable bit of philosophy of
!
olden times.’ And again, “No translation can ever
do justice to the beauty of the original.”I I think
1 Proceedings of #2:? American Oriental Society, vol. xi. , p. 03:7"... 2 ffisz‘m‘y of Philosophy, vol. i., part i, pp. II!) and I26.
