ped to the
present day. And still the thought within him has no real name; that
power which is nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the
heavens, and every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but
not expressed. At last he calls it Atman; for atman, originally breath
or spirit, comes to mean Self and Self alone--Self whether divine or
human, Self whether creating or suffering, Self whether one or all,
but always Self, independent and free. 'Who has seen the first-born,'
says the poet, 'when he who has no bones (i. e. form) bore him that
had bones? Where was the life, the blood, the Self of the world? Who
went to ask this from any that knew it?' (Rv.I. 164, 4). This idea of
a divine Self once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its
supremacy, 'Self is the Lord of all things, Self is the King of all
things. As all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and the
circumference, all things are contained in this Self; all selves are
contained in this Self.[32] Brahman itself is but Self.'[33]

[Footnote 32: B_r_ihad-ara_n_yaka, IV. 5, 15 ed. Roer, p. 487.]

[Footnote 33: Ibid. p. 478. _K_handogya-upanishad, VIII. 3, 3-4.]

This Atman also grew; but it grew, as it were, without attributes. The
sun is called the Self of all that moves and rests (Rv. I. 115, 1),
and still more frequently self becomes a mere pronoun. But Atman
remained always free from mythe and worship, differing in this from
the Brahman (neuter), who has his temples in India even now, and is
worshipped as Brahman (masculine), together with Vish_n_u and _S_iva,
and other popular gods. The idea of the Atman or Self, like a pure
crystal, was too transparent for poetry, and therefore was handed over
to philosophy, which afterwards polished, and turned, and watched it
as the medium through which all is seen, and in which all is reflected
and known. But philosophy is later than the Veda, and it is of the
Vaidik period only I have here to speak.[34]

[Footnote 34: In writing the above, I was thinking rather of the
mental process that was necessary for the production of such words as
brahman, atman, and others, than of their idiomatic use in the ancient
literature of India. It might be objected, for instance, that brahman,
neut. in the sense of creative power or the principal cause of all
things, does not occur in the Rig-veda. This is true. But it occurs in
that sense in the Atharva-veda, and in several of the Brahma_n_as.
There w