Handbook of History of Religions

SR No.: 007634
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Edward Washburn
Publisher: Sanmati Tirth Prakashan Pune
Total Pages: 678
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 2 MB

Page 180

worship so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside a man. The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.
In regard to eschatology, as in regard to myths, it has been shown that the utmost caution in identification is called for. It may be surmised that such or such a belief or legend is in origin one with a like faith or tale of other peoples. But the question whether it be one in historical origin or in universal mythopoetic fancy, and this latter be the only common origin, must remain in almost every case unanswered[28]. This is by far not so entertaining, nor so picturesque a solution as is the explanation of a common historical basis for any two legends, with its inspiring 'open sesame' to the door of the locked past. But which is truer? Which accords more with the facts as they are collected from a wider field? As man in the process of development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a probable community of origin.
But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as devils were due to Iranian influence—which can neither be proved nor disproved—the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main features is of a purely native character.
As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded the worship of soma of nature-gods that are in part already more than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral law and a belief in a life hereafter. There is also a vaguer nascent belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most wonder-working of the wonder