meaning which in the Rig Veda is universal.

The note struck in this hymn is not unique:

(THE POET.)

Eager for booty proffer your laudation
To Indra; truth (is he),[7] if truth existeth;
'Indra is not,' so speaketh this and that one;
'Who him hath seen? To whom shall we give praises?'

(THE GOD.)

I am, O singer, he; look here upon me;
All creatures born do I surpass in greatness.
Me well-directed sacrifices nourish,
Destructive I destroy existent beings.[8]

These are not pleas in behalf of a new god. It is not the mere god of
physical phenomena who is here doubted and defended. It is the god
that in the last stage of the Rig Veda is become the Creator and
Destroyer, and, in the light of a completed pantheism, is grown too
great to retain his personality. With such a protest begins the great
revolt that is the sign of an inner evolution extending through the
Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads. Indra, like other gods,[9] is held by the
rite; to the vulgar he is still the great god;[10] to the philosopher,
a name. The populace respect him, and sacerdotalism conserves him,
that same crafty, priestly power, which already at the close of the
Rig Vedic period dares to say that only the king who is subject to the
priest is sure of himself, and a little later that killing a priest is
the only real murder. We have shown above how the real divinity of the
gods was diminished even at the hands of the priests that needed them
for the rites and baksheesh, which was the goal of their piety. Even
Praj[=a]pati, the Father-god, their own creation, is mortal as well as
immortal.[11] We have shown, also, how difficult it must have been to
release the reason from the formal band of the rite. Socially it was
impossible to do so. He that was not initiated was excommunicated, an
outcast. But, on the other hand, the great sacrifices gradually fell
over from their own weight. Cumbersome and costly, they were replaced
by proxy works of piety; _vidh[=a]nas_ were established that obviated
the real rite; just as to-day, 'pocket altars' take the place of real
altars.[12] There was a gradual intrusion of the Hindu cult; popular
features began to obtain; the sacrifice was made to embrace in its
workings the whole family of the sacrificer (instead of its effect
being confined to him alone, as was the earlier form); and finally
village celebrations became more general than those of the individual.
Slowly Hinduism built itself a