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O lord Varuna, may this song go well to thy heart! May we prosper in acquiring and keeping! Protect us, O gods, always with your blessings.'
I am not blind to the blemishes of this ancient prayer, but I am not blind to its beauty either, and I think you will admit that the discovery of even one such poem among the hymns of the Rig-veda, and the certainty that such a poem was composed in India at least three thousand years ago, without any inspiration but that which all can find who seek for it if haply they may find it, is well worth the labour of a life. It shows that man was never forsaken of God, and that conviction is worth more to the student of history than all the dynasties of Babylon and Egypt, worth more than all lacustrian villages, worth more than the skulls and jaw-bones of Neanderthal or Abbeville.
LECTURE IV.
I add a few more translations of Vedic hymns, some of which have been published elsewhere, while one is given here for the first time1.
PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS (RIG-VEDA VII. 89).
1. Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of earth; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
2. If I move along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
3. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, have I gone astray; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
4. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he
1 See Einleitung in die Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft,' p. 211.
