, and dressed in new garb according to the
imagination of the priest; and a few are priestly inventions
altogether. There is Dyaush-pita, the Sky-father, with Prithivi Mata,
the Earth-mother; there are Vayu the Wind-spirit, Parjanya the
Rain-god, Surya the Sun-god, and other spirits of the sky such as
Savita; there is the Dawn-goddess, Ushas. All these are or were
originally deified powers of nature: the people, though their
imagination created them, have never felt any deep interest in them,
and the priests who have taken them into their charge, though they
treat them very courteously and sing to them elegant hymns full of
figures of speech, have not been able to cover them with the flesh and
blood of living personality. Then we have Agni the Fire-god, and Soma
the spirit of the intoxicating juice of the soma-plant, which is used
to inspire the pious to drunken raptures in certain ceremonies; both
of these have acquired a peculiar importance through their association
with priestly worship, especially Agni, because he, as bearing to the
gods the sacrifices cast into his flames, has become the ideal Priest
and divine Paraclete of Heaven. Nevertheless all this hieratic
importance has not made them gods in the deeper sense, reigning in the
hearts of men. Then we find powers of doubtful origin, Mitra and
Varuna and Vishnu and Rudra, and figures of heroic legend, like the
warrior Indra and the twin charioteers called Asvinaa and Nasatya. All
these, with many others, have their worship in the Rig-veda: the
priests sing their praises lustily, and often speak now of one deity,
now of another, as being the highest divinity, without the least
consistency.

Some savage races believe in a highest god or first divine Being in
whom they feel little personal interest. They seldom speak of him, and
hardly ever worship him. So it seems to be with Dyaush-pita. The
priests speak of him and to him, but only in connexion with other
gods; he has not a single whole hymn in his honour, and the only
definite attribute that attaches to him is that of fatherhood. Yet he
has become a great god among other races akin in speech to the Aryans
of India: Dyaush-pita is phonetically the same as the Greek [Greek:
Zeus pater] and the Latin _Iuppiter_. How comes it then that he is
not, and apparently never was, a god in the true sense among the
Indian Aryans? Because, I think, his name has always betrayed him. To
call a deity "Sky-father" is to label him