hat is commonly understood by Polytheism. Yet it
would be equally wrong to call it Monotheism. If we must have a name
for it, I should call it Kathenotheism. The consciousness that all the
deities are but different names of one and the same godhead, breaks
forth indeed here and there in the Veda. But it is far from being
general. One poet, for instance, says (Rv. I. 164, 46): "They call him
Indra, Mitra, Varu_n_a, Agni; then he is the beautiful-winged heavenly
Garutmat: that which is One the wise call it in divers manners: they
call it Agni, Yama, Matari_s_van." And again (Rv. X. 114, 5): "Wise
poets make the beautiful-winged, though he is one, manifold by words."

* * * * *

I shall read you a few Vedic verses, in which the religious sentiment
predominates, and in which we perceive a yearning after truth, and
after the true God, untrammeled as yet by any names or any
traditions[16] (Rv. X. 121):--

[Footnote 16: _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, p. 569.]

1. In the beginning there arose the golden Child--He was the
one born lord of all that is. He stablished the earth, and
this sky;--Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
sacrifice?

2. He who gives life, He who gives strength; whose command
all the bright gods revere; whose shadow is immortality,
whose shadow is death;--Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice?

3. He who through His power is the one king of the breathing
and awakening world--He who governs all, man and beast;--Who
is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

4. He whose greatness these snowy mountains, whose greatness
the sea proclaims, with the distant river--He whose these
regions are, as it were His two arms;--Who is the God to
whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

5. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm--He
through whom the heaven was stablished,--nay, the highest
heaven,--He who measured out the light in the air;--Who is
the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

6. He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will,
look up, trembling inwardly--He over whom the rising sun
shines forth;--Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
sacrifice?

7. Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed
the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the sole
life of the bright