s one thing; the
vulgar, another. The priest of the Vedic age, like the philosopher of
the next age, and like the later sectarian, has a belief which runs
ahead of the popular religion. But the popular religion in its salient
features still remains about the same. Arjuna, the epic hero, the pet
of Krishna, visits Indra's heaven and stays there five years. It is
the old Vedic gods to whom he turns for weapons, till the Civaite
makes Indra send the knight further, to Civa himself. The old name,
king of the Vasus, is still retained for Indra; and though the 'divine
weapons,' which are winged with sacred formulae, are said to be more
than a match for the gods; though in many a passage the knight and the
saint make Indra tremble, yet still appear, through the mists of
ascetic and sectarian novelties, Indra's heaven and his grandeur,
shining with something of their old glory. Vishnu still shows his
solar origin. Of him and of the sun is it said in identical words:
"The sun protects and devours all," and " Vishnu protects and devours
" (of Vishnu, passim; of the sun, iii. 33. 71). A good deal of old
stuff is left in the Forest Book amongst the absurd tales of holy
watering places. One finds repeated several times the Vedic account of
Indra's fight with Vritra, the former's thunderbolt, however, being
now made of a saint's bones (ii. ch. 100-105). Agni is lauded (_ib_.
ch. 123). To the Acvins[15] there is one old hymn which contains Vedic
forms (i. 3). Varuna is still lord of the West, and goes accompanied
with the rivers, 'male and female,' with snakes, and demons, and
half-gods _(d[=a]ityas, s[=a]dhyas, d[=a]ivatas_). Later, but earlier
than the pseudo-epic, there stands with these gods Kubera, the god of
wealth, the 'jewel-giver,' who is the guardian of travellers, the king
of those demons called Yakshas, which the later sect makes servants of
Civa. He is variously named;[16] he is a dwarf; he dwells in the
North, in Mt. K[=a]il[=a]sa, and has a demoniac gate-keeper,
Macakruka. Another newer god is the one already referred to, Dharma
V[=a]ivasvata, or Justice (Virtue, Right), the son of the sun, a title
of Yama older than the Vedas. He is also the father of the new
love-god, K[=a]ma. It is necessary to indicate the names of the gods
and their functions, lest one imagine that with pantheism the Vedic
religion expired. Even that old, impious Brahmanic fable crops out
again: "The devils were the older brothers of the gods, and w