st always be so. The Vedic leaders of religion,
therefore, were not merely champions of enlightenment in religion;
they were also ritualists, the rite was to them an end in itself; the
proper performance of sacrifice was their principal object. This side
of their work had, as we shall see, grave consequences. But the
Rigveda did a great work for India in cultivating gods who were
moral, and to whom man was drawn by higher than selfish motives. Gods
who are just and who watch man's conduct, and do not fail to reward
him according to his deeds, must quicken the conscience of those who
believe in them, and gods who are able to help the weak and to
forgive the penitent must make their people also merciful. In all the
aberrations of Indian religion the high moral standard set by the
Vedic gods is never lost sight of.

Where a plurality of gods is believed in, these gods must stand in
some relation to each other; and it is of importance to notice how
the gods of the Veda are arranged. We can see here very clearly how
unstable a thing polytheism is. The position of the gods is
constantly changing with reference to each other. We find Agni
addressed as if he were undoubtedly supreme; he dwells in the highest
heavens, he generates the gods, he ordains the order of the universe;
but then we find Indra spoken of in the same way, and Varuna, and
Mitra, and others. Then we find pairs of gods addressed together.
Indra and Agni are frequently so treated; so are Varuna and Mitra.
There is no supreme god, or rather, each god is supreme in turn; the
poet wants a god capable of being exalted in every way, and does so
exalt the god he has before him. In this way a Monotheism is reached;
the mind recognises a god to whom unlimited adoration can be paid.
But it is a monotheism, as M. Barth well puts it, the titular god of
which is always changing; and Mr. Max Mueller gives to this partial
monotheism the name of Kathenotheism; that is, the worship of one god
at a time without any denial that other gods exist and are worthy of
adoration. Now this form of religion, in which several gods are
worshipped, each of whom in turn is regarded as supreme, is not
peculiar to India; we have met with it already, we shall meet with it
again. But in India a peculiar way was found out of the difficulty.
The Indian gods were too little defined, too little personal, too
much alike, to maintain their separate personalities with great
tenacity; nor did they lend