by names derived from the same old Aryan word
(_deva_, the Shining One), by Brahmans in Calcutta, by the Protestant
clergy of England, and by Roman Catholic priests in Peru.

The Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian branch of the Aryans on their march
to the southeast, and in their new homes. The earliest songs disclose
the race still to the north of the Khaibar pass, in Kabul; the later
ones bring them as far as the Ganges. Their victorious advance eastward
through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings
almost step by step. The steady supply of water among the five rivers of
the Punjab led the Aryans to settle down from their old state of
wandering half-pastoral tribes into regular communities of husbandmen.
The Vedic poets praised the rivers which enabled them to make this great
change--perhaps the most important step in the progress of a race. "May
the Indus," they sang, "the far-famed giver of wealth, hear us;
[fertilizing our] broad fields with water." The Himalayas, through whose
southwestern passes they had reached India, and at whose southern base
they long dwelt, made a lasting impression on their memory. The Vedic
singer praised "Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and
the aerial river declare." The Aryan race in India never forgot its
northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there
eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan
mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the
brave forever repose.

The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan
settlements in the Punjab. The age of this venerable hymnal is unknown.
Orthodox Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed "from before
all time," or at least from 3001 years B.C. European scholars have
inferred from astronomical data that its composition was going on about
1400 B.C. But the evidence might have been calculated backward, and
inserted later in the Veda. We only know that the Vedic religion had
been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
The Rig-Veda is a very old collection of 1017 short poems, chiefly
addressed to the gods, and containing 10,580 verses. Its hymns show us
the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes,
sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the
"black-skinned" aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each
father of a family is the priest of