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THE POWER OF KARMA of a far later time, when Sanskrit and Zend had been developed by the slow process of change and the separation of the ancient race. Both in the Veda and Zend Avesta we find Vayu, Flame, invoked in adoration, and it is not surprising to find that in the earliest records of the expression of the human mind it was to the sun shining in the sky and the visible luminaries of the vault of heaven that men turned their attention in wonder and veneration. That glorious luminary, the sun, the source of Fire and Light and of the invigorating and vitalizing influences which it sheds from on high, its orderly progress, marking times and seasons, and its unparalleled magnificence amongst all the phenomena of Nature, called forth a spontaneous emotion of worship and adoration. By the time that the Rig Veda came to be written in Sanskrit we find that the Aryan folk had already reached an advanced stage of civilization. We find accounts of vast numbers of cattle and horses possessed by wealthy chiefs, and also of chariots, and gold and elegantly adorned female slaves. At that time the prosperity of the employer was also the good fortune of the labourer and the herdsman. The religious conceptions of the race were simple, the hymns of the Veda are entirely
