________________
does not hesitate to illustrate Vedic religion with the light cast by other forms of superstition. But this method has its dangers, and there is perhaps a little too much straining after original types, giant-gods as prototypes and totemism in proper names, where Vedic data should be separated from what may have preceded Vedic belief. Oldenberg, as a ritualist, finds in Varuna, Dawn, and the Burial Service the inevitable stumbling-blocks of such scholars as confuse Brahmanism with early Vedism. To remove these obstacles he suggests that Varuna, as the moon, was borrowed from the Semites or Akkadians (though be frankly admits that not even the shadow of this moon lingers in Vedic belief); explains Dawn's non-participation in soma by stating that she never participates in it (which explains nothing); and jumps over the Burial Hymn with the inquiry whether, after all, it could not be interpreted as a cremation-hymn (the obvious answer being that the service does imply burial, and does not even hint at cremation). On the other hand, when theoretical barbarism and ritualism are foregone, Oldenberg has a true eye for the estimation of facts, and hence takes an unimpeachable position in several important particulars, notably in rejecting Jacobi's date of the Rig Veda; in rejecting also Hillebrandt's moon-soma, in denying an originally supreme Dyla]us; in his explanation of henotheism. (substantially one with the explanation we gave a year ago); and in his account of the relation of the Rig Veda to the (later) Atharvan. Despite an occasional brilliant suggestion, which makes the work more exciting than reliable, this book will prove of great value to them that are particularly interested in the ritual; though the reader must be on his guard against the substitution of deduction for induction, as manifested in the confusion of epochs, and in the tendency to interpret by analogy rather than in accordance with historical data. The worth of the latter part of the book is impaired by an unsubstantiated theory of sacrifice, but as a whole it presents a clear and valuable view of the cult.]
