other similar collections no longer extant,[1] belong to an age more recent, and form with the Brâhmaṇas the secondary deposit in the stratification of Vedic literature.
The religion which is transmitted to us in these Hymns[2] is, in its principal features, this: Nature is throughout divine. Everything which is impressive by its sublimity, or is supposed capable of affecting us for good or evil, may become a direct object of adoration. Mountains, rivers, springs, trees, plants, are invoked as so many high powers.[3] The animals which surround man, the horse by which he is borne into battle, the cow which supplies him with nourishment, the dog which keeps watch over his dwelling, the bird which, by its cry, reveals to him his future, together with that more numerous class of creatures which threaten his existence, receive from him the worship of either homage or deprecation.[4] There are parts even of the apparatus used in connection with sacrifice which are more than sacred to purposes of religion; they are regarded as themselves deities.[5] The very war-chariot, offensive
- ↑ In all the ritualistic texts, even the most recent, we meet now and again with fragments of liturgy of the same nature and character, sometimes quite as ancient as the Hymns, and which do not occur in the Saṃhitâs of the Ṛig- and the Atharva-Veda as known to us.
- ↑ See J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv., 2d ed., 1873, and vol. v., 1870, We refer our readers, once for all, to this exposé as at once the most complete and the most reliable we possess of the Vedic religions. Max Müller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 525 seq. The same author's Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by the Religions of India, 1878, pp. 193 seq., 224 seq., 259 seq. A. Ludwig, Die Philosophischen und Religiösen Anschauungen des Veda in ihrer Entwicklung, 1875; and Die Mantralitteratur und das Alte Indien (t. iii. of his translation of the Ṛig-Veda), 1878, pp. 257-415. A. Bergaigue subjects the mystic and religious ideas of the Rig-Veda to a searching analysis in a work still in course of publication, entitled, La Religion Védique d'après les Hymues du Rig-Veda, t. i. (Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, fascic. xxxvi.), 1878.
- ↑ Ṛig-Veda, vii. 35, 8; viii. 54, 4; x. 35, 2; 64, 8; ii. 41, 16-18; iii. 33; vii. 47, 95, 96; viii. 74, 15; x. 64, 9; 75; vii. 49; i. 90, 8; vii. 34, 23-25; vi. 49, 14; x. 17, 14; 97; 145. Atharva-Veda, viii. 7.
- ↑ Ṛig-Veda, i. 162, 163; iv. 38; i. 164, 26-28; iii. 53, 14; iv. 57, 4; vi. 28; viii. 101, 15; x. 19, 169; Atharva-Veda, x. 10; xii. 4; 5; Ṛig-Veda, vii. 55; ii. 42, 43; x. 165; i. 116, 16; 191, 6; vii. 104, 17-22; Atharva-Veda, viii. 8, 15; 10, 29; ix. 2, 22; x. 4.
- ↑ Ṛig-Veda, iii. 8; x. 76, 175; and in general the Aprî-sûktas; see, moreover, i, 187: i. 28, 5-8; iv. 58; Atharva-Veda, xviii. 4, 5; xix. 32,
