make the study of their sacred literature obligatory on all castes
except the _S_udras, and the passages just quoted from Manu show what
penalties were threatened if children of the second and third castes,
the Kshatriyas and Vai_s_yas, were not instructed in the sacred
literature of the Brahmans.

At present the Brahmans themselves have spoken, and the reception they
have accorded to my edition of the Rig-Veda[151] and its native
commentary, the zeal with which they have themselves taken up the
study of Vedic literature, and the earnestness with which different
sects are still discussing the proper use that should be made of their
ancient religious writings, show abundantly that a Sanskrit scholar
ignorant of, or, I should rather say, determined to ignore the Veda,
would be not much better than a Hebrew scholar ignorant of the Old
Testament.

I shall now proceed to give you some characteristic specimens of the
religion and poetry of the Rig-Veda. They can only be few, and as
there is nothing like system or unity of plan in that collection of
1017 hymns, which we call the Sa_m_hita of the Rig-Veda, I cannot
promise that they will give you a complete panoramic view of that
intellectual world in which our Vedic ancestors passed their life on
earth.

I could not even answer the question, if you were to ask it whether
the religion of the Veda was _polytheistic_ or _monotheistic_.
Monotheistic, in the usual sense of that word, it is decidedly not,
though there are hymns that assert the unity of the Divine as
fearlessly as any passage of the Old Testament, or the New Testament,
or the Koran. Thus one poet says (Rig-Veda I. 164, 46): "That which is
_one_, sages name it in various ways--they call it Agni, Yama,
Matari_s_van."

Another poet says: "The wise poets represent by their words Him who is
one with beautiful wings, in many ways."[152]

And again we hear of a being called Hira_n_yagarbha, the golden germ
(whatever the original of that name may have been), of whom the poet
says:[153] "In the beginning there arose Hira_n_yagarbha; he was the one
born lord of all this. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the
god to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" That Hira_n_yagarbha, the poet
says, "is alone God above all gods" (ya_h_ deveshu adhi deva_h_ eka_h_
asit)--an assertion of the unity of the Divine which could hardly be
exceeded in strength by any passage from the Old Testament.

But by the side of such pas