Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 14

THE EARLY VEDIC RELIGION. did so, long before Buddhism took its rise, in the sixth Analogies to
looies to century B.C., they had developed religious ideas Greek and and conceptions which present singular analo
Roman gies and similarities to those which appear religion.
to be most primitive among the Greeks; and which suggest, if they do not prove, that the European and Hindu Aryans sprang from a common stock. When we find their divinities termed “devas," or "the shining ones," and recognise the same word in the Latin Deus, divinity; when we compare the Dyaushpitar (Heaven-Father) of Sanskrit, with Jupiter or Diespiter of Rome, and the Zeus of Greece; Varuna, the encompassing sky in Sanskrit, with Ouranos Uranus in Greek; and many other like words, we cannot help realising that, strange as it might seem at first, Brahmanism and Greek and Latin religion sprang from a similar source. And it is not very important which is the older. We know that the Hindu sacred books, the Vedas,--at any rate some of them,--are among the oldest of extant human compositions, and exhibit to us some of the earliest human ideas that were handed down by writing
The best opinions place the date of the Rig Veda somewhere between 800 and 1200 B.C. The collection consists of ten books, containing altogether 1,017 hymns; eight
Date of the out of ten books begin with hymns addressed Rig-Veda. to Agni, and others addressed to Indra follow. It appears probable that at least two distinct generations or series of authors composed them, the later being more imitative and reflective; and it is probable that some of the hymns date from a period earlier even than 1200 B.C. In the whole series there is no reference to anything conAnterior to nected with writing, and this suggests that they
writing. are relatively anterior to the Book of Exodus, where “books" and writing are distinctly mentioned. Even long after the period of the Rig-Veda, writing
i See Muir, “ Original Sanskrit Texts” (M.) ; - Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," "Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion," “ Sacred Books of the East” (M. M.); Sir Monier Williams, "Indian Wisdom," "Hinduism” (M. W.); Sir W. W. Hunter, “ India ;” H. H. Wilson's works.