ese three regions. On
the other hand, a tendency is clearly traceable in some of the hymns
towards identifying gods whose functions present a certain degree of
similarity of nature; attempts which would seem to show a certain
advance of religious reflection, the first steps from polytheism towards
a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence. Another feature of
the old Vedic worship tended to a similar result. The great problems of
the origin and existence of man and the universe had early begun to
engage the Hindu mind; and in celebrating the praises of the gods the
poet was frequently led by his religious, and not wholly disinterested,
zeal to attribute to them cosmical functions of the very highest order.
At a later stage of thought, chiefly exhibited in the tenth book of the
_Rigveda_ and in the _Atharvaveda_, inquiring sages could not but
perceive the inconsistency of such concessions of a supremacy among the
divine rulers, and tried to solve the problem by conceptions of an
independent power, endowed with all the attributes of a supreme deity,
the creator of the universe, including the gods of the pantheon. The
names under which this monotheistic idea is put forth are mostly of an
attributive character, and indeed some of them, such as _Prajapati_
("lord of creatures"), _Visvakarman_ ("all-worker"), occur in the
earlier hymns as mere epithets of particular gods. But to other minds
this theory of a personal creator left many difficulties unsolved. They
saw, as the poets of old had seen, that everything around them, that man
himself, was directed by some inward agent; and it needed but one step
to perceive the essential sameness of these spiritual units, and to
recognize their being but so many individual manifestations of one
universal principle or spiritual essence. Thus a pantheistic conception
was arrived at, put forth under various names, such as _Purusha_
("soul"), _Kama_ ("desire"), _Brahman_ (neutr.; nom. sing. _brahma_)
("devotion, prayer"). Metaphysical and theosophic speculations were thus
fast undermining the simple belief in the old gods, until, at the time
of the composition of the _Brahmanas_ and _Upanishads_, we find them in
complete possession of the minds of the theologians. Whilst the theories
crudely suggested in the later hymns are now further matured and
elaborated, the tendency towards catholicity of formula favours the
combination of the conflicting monotheistic and pantheistic conception