with their swift
motion through the air, and sprinkling thee with dew." "Bear him, carry
him; let him, with all his faculties complete, go to the world of the
righteous. Crossing the dark valley which spreadeth boundless around
him, let the unborn soul ascend to heaven. Wash the feet of him who is
stained with sin; let him go upward with cleansed feet. Crossing the
gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up
to heaven."

By degrees the old collection of hymns, or the Rig-Veda, no longer
sufficed. Three other collections or service-books were therefore added,
making the Four Vedas. The word Veda is from the same root as the Latin
_vid-ere_, to see: the early Greek _feid-enai_, infinitive of _oida_, I
know: and the English _wisdom_, or I _wit_. The Brahmans taught that the
Veda was divinely inspired, and that it was literally "the _wisdom_ of
God." There was, first, the Rig-Veda, or the hymns in their simplest
form. Second, the Sama-Veda, made up of hymns of the Rig-Veda to be used
at the Soma sacrifice. Third, the Yajur-Veda, consisting not only of
Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the great
sacrifices; and divided into two editions, the Black and White Yajur.
The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns
at the end of the Rig-Veda, very old religious spells, and later
sources. Some of its spells have a similarity to the ancient German and
Lithuanian charms, and appear to have come down from the most primitive
times, before the Indian and European branches of the Aryan race struck
out from their common home.

To each of the four Vedas were attached prose works, called Brahmanas,
in order to explain the sacrifices and the duties of the priests. Like
the Four Vedas, the Brahmanas were held to be the very word of God. The
Vedas and the Brahmanas form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus--the
_sruti_, literally "Things _heard_ from God." The Vedas supplied their
divinely-inspired psalms, and the Brahmanas their divinely-inspired
theology or body of doctrine. To them were afterward added the Sutras,
literally "_Strings_ of pithy sentences" regarding laws and ceremonies.
Still later the Upanishads were composed, treating of God and the soul;
the Aranyakas, or "Tracts for the forest recluse;" and, after a very
long interval, the Puranas, or "Traditions from of old." All these
ranked, however, not as divinely-inspired knowledge, or things "heard
f