Great Indian Religion

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

Page 30

18
THE EARLY VEDIC RELIGION.
will, look up, trembling inwardly; He over whom the rising sun shines forth.
"Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the only life of the bright gods.
"He who by His might looked even over the waterclouds, the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice, He who is God above all gods.
"May He not destroy us, He the creator of the earth; or He the righteous who created the heaven; He who also created the bright and mighty waters!"
Transition to
Thus we have contemplated in the earliest Vedic hymns a series of conceptions of distinct deities associated with the powers of Nature, and correspondingly monotheism named. It is only later that the idea seems and to arise that these were all representations of pantheism. different aspects of one power, and sometimes this appears to proceed from a desire to magnify the particular god whose praises are being specially celebrated; later, new names were used to signify these more enlarged conceptions, such as Visvakarman and Prajapati, not limited to any particular department, but believed to be the divine powers governing the earth. Another kind of expression shows an early form of pantheism, identifying the godhead with Nature: Thus "Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the air, Aditi is the mother and father and son. Aditi is all the gods and the five classes of men. Aditi is whatever has been born. Aditi is whatever shall be born." (M.)
Visvakarman (at first a name of Indra), the great architect of the universe, is in the tenth book of the Rig
Visva- Veda represented as the all-seeing god, who has karman. on every side eyes, faces, arms, and feet, the father generator, who knows all worlds, and gives the gods their names. Similar attributes are in other hymns ascribed to other divine beings, such as Brahman, Prajapati, etc.; these being probably by different authors. We see here the product of the most advanced thought among these early Aryans, including a singular variety of attempts to express the thoughts to which the great