mmon.]

[Footnote 115: Perhaps to be omitted.]

[Footnote 116: _Pischel_, Ved. St. I. p. 48. As swift-going
gods they are called 'Indra-like.']

[Footnote 117: VIII. 9 and 10.]

[Footnote 118: Doubtful]

[Footnote 119: The last verse is not peculiar to this hymn,
but is the sign of the book (family) in which it was
composed.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

THE RIG VEDA (CONTINUED).--THE MIDDLE GODS.

Only one of the great atmospheric deities, the gods that preeminently
govern the middle sphere between sky and earth, can claim an Aryan
lineage. One of the minor gods of the same sphere, the ancient
rain-god, also has this antique dignity, but in his case the dignity
already is impaired by the strength of a new and greater rival. In the
case of the wind-god, on the other hand, there is preserved a deity
who was one of the primitive pantheon, belonging, perhaps, not only to
the Iranians, but to the Teutons, for V[=a]ta, Wind, may be the
Scandinavian Woden. The later mythologists on Indian soil make a
distinction between V[=a]ta, wind, and V[=a]yu (from the same root; as
in German _wehen_) and in this distinction one discovers that the old
V[=a]ta, who must have been once _the_ wind-god, is now reduced to
physical (though sentient) wind, while the newer name represents the
higher side of wind as a power lying back of phenomena; and it is this
latter conception alone that is utilized in the formation of the Vedic
triad of wind, fire, and sun. In short, in the use and application of
the two names, there is an exact parallel to the double terminology
employed to designate the sun as S[=u]rya and Savitar. Just as
S[=u]rya is the older [Greek: helios] and sol (acknowledged as a god,
yet palpably the physical red body in the sky) contrasted with the
interpretation which, by a newer name (Savitar), seeks to
differentiate the (sentient) physical from the spiritual, so is
V[=a]ta, Woden, replaced and lowered by the loftier conception of
V[=a]yu. But, again, just as, when the conception of Savitar is
formed, the spiritualizing tendency reverts to S[=u]rya, and makes of
him, too, a figure reclothed in the more modern garb of speech, which
is invented for Savitar alone; so the retroactive theosophic fancy,
after creating V[=a]yu as a divine power underlying phenomenal
V[=a]ta, reinvests V[=a]ta also with the garments of V[=a]yu. Thus,
finally, the two,