The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hindu Gods And Heroes, by Lionel D. Barnett

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Title: Hindu Gods And Heroes
Studies in the History of the Religion of India

Author: Lionel D. Barnett

Release Date: October 4, 2007 [EBook #22885]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HINDU GODS AND HEROES ***

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The Wisdom of the East Series

EDITED BY

L. CRANMER-BYNG

Dr. S. A. KAPADIA

WISDOM OF THE EAST

HINDU GODS AND

HEROES

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
THE RELIGION OF INDIA

BY

LIONEL D. BARNETT, M.A., LITT

* * * * *

PREFACE

The following pages are taken from the Forlong Bequest lectures which
I delivered in March last at the School of Oriental Studies. Owing to
exigencies of space, much of what I then said has been omitted here,
especially with regard to the worship of Siva; but enough remains to
make clear my general view, which is that the religion of the Aryans
of India was essentially a worship of spirits--sometimes spirits of
real persons, sometimes imaginary spirits--and that, although in early
days it provisionally found room for personifications of natural
forces, it could not digest them into Great Gods, and therefore they
have either disappeared or, if surviving, remain as mere Struldbrugs.
Thus I am a heretic in relation to both the Solar Theory and the
Vegetation Theory, as everyone must be who takes the trouble to study
Hindu nature without prejudice.

L. D. B.

_May 29, 1922._

* * * * *

CONTENTS

I. THE VEDIC AGE:

Popular Religion, p. 9--Rig-veda and priestly religion, p.
11--Dyaus-Zeus, p. 14--Ushas, p. 18--Surya, p. 19--Savita, p.
19--Mitra and Varuna, p. 19-