I. THE GODS OF THE UPPER WORLD OR HEAVEN

Dyaus

The oldest among the gods that the Aryans worshipped was Dyaus, and he was probably revered by the ancestors of the Aryans long before any Aryans had journeyed to India. The word Dyaus is identical with the Greek Zeus, and Dyaush-pitar, the ‘heavenly father’ is the same as the Greek Zeus-pater and the Latin Jupiter. The same name in a different form, Tiu or Ziu, was used by the Aryans who made their way into the forests of Germany. The ancient Norsemen worshipped the same god as Tyr. In the Rig-veda Dyaus is the sky regarded as the father of all. Prithivi, the earth, is often named as his consort, the pair being celebrated in six hymns as universal parents of gods and men. In a few passages Dyaus is called a bull, ruddy and bellowing, referring to the lightning and the thunder. In allusion to the starry sky he is called a black steed decked with pearls. But the fame of Dyaus was on the wane even in very early Vedic times and the names of other less ancient gods took the place of his in Vedic worship.

Varuna

Varuna, like Dyaus, is another god of the earliest Aryans. He is the sky, as encompassing all things, one ‘who envelops like darkness.’ The name is identical with the Greek Ouranos, ’the heavens.’

Varuna is the great upholder of order, physical and moral (rita); he dwells in all worlds as ruler; he ordains the change of day and night, opens paths for the sun, causes rivers to flow, provides that the rivers shall not overfill the ocean, knows the flight of birds, beholds all things open and secret, watches over the world, punishes the evil doer, and forgives the sins of those who implore his pardon.

Varuna has a moral character higher than that of any other deity.

While in hymns to the other divinities long life, wealth, power are the objects commonly prayed for purity, forgiveness of sin, freedom from further sinning is sought from Varuna with humble confessions of guilt and repentance. It is a sore grief to the singers to know that man daily transgresses Varuna’s commands; they acknowledge that without his aid they are not masters of themselves for a single moment; they fly to him for refuge from evil, expressing at the same time all confidence that their prayers will be heard and granted. Thus one seer sings:

O Varuna whatever the offence may be That we as men commit against the heavenly folk When through our want of thought we violate the laws Chastise us not, O God, for that iniquity.[^1]

Other beautiful prayers from the Rig-veda are quoted in the Readings. In the Atharva-veda, also illimitable knowledge is ascribed to Varuna:

Varuna, the great lord of these worlds, sees as if he were near. When any man thinks he is doing aught by stealth, the gods know it all; (and they perceive) every one who stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie down or into any lurking place. What two people sitting together whisper to each other, King Varuna knows it; he is there as the third. This earth, too, belongs to Varuna, the King, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky and the ocean) are Varuna’s loins; he is also curtained in this small drop of water. He who should flee far beyond the sky, even he would not escape Varuna, the King. His spies proceed from heaven towards this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this earth. King Varuna sees all this, what is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws down the dice, he settles all things.[^2]

In later Hinduism Varuna, like Dyaus, ceases to be the supreme beneficent and righteous ruler and appears merely as a god of the ocean. With his disappearance there would seem to have gone from Indian religious life what might have been a great impulse towards righteousness. The significance of this is more fully dealt with in the section on the Legacy of Vedic religion.

Mitra, ’the friend’, the kindly sun, is often worshipped with Varuna in the Vedic hymns. They then jointly rule day and night, uphold the heavens and the earth, guard the good and punish the guilty.

Mitra

Mitra is one of the Ādityas and in the Vedas is generally associated with Varuna: he is seldom mentioned alone. Sāyana says, ‘Mitra is the god who presides over the day, and Varuna is the god who rules over the night.’ Mitra is the same as the Persian Mithra. The name means ’the friend’ and seems to refer to the kindly power of the sun, and the early Aryans must have worshipped the sun in this character before the Persian and Indian branches of the Aryans separated. Mitra and Varuna have much the same attributes though Mitra has not the moral power that Varuna has. Only one hymn is addressed to Mitra without Varuna. In it the worshipping sage proclaims his sure faith in Mitra’s goodness:

Mitra uttering his voice calls men to activity. Mitra sustains the earth and the sky. Mitra with unwinking eye beholds (all) creatures. Mitra, son of Aditi, may the mortal who worships thee with sacred rites have food. He who is protected by thee is neither slain nor conquered. Calamity does not reach him from near or far.
Rig-veda, iii. 59.

Surya

Sūrya, the sun god, worshipped by the Greeks as Helios, is in one hymn styled the son of Dyaus: in another he is called the son of Aditi. Ushas ’the dawn’ is in one place said to be his wife, while in another she is described as his mother. He moves in a car which is sometimes said to be drawn by seven fleet and ruddy mares. He rolls up darkness like a hide. Pūshan goes as his messenger with his golden ships, which sail in the aerial ocean. Sūrya is the preserver and soul of all things stationary and moving and is, therefore, called ‘all creating’; enlivened by him men perform their work; he is far-seeing, all-seeing, beholds all creatures, and the good and bad deeds of mortals. By his greatness he is the divine leader of the gods. He is often described as a bird or eagle flying through space. The epithets ‘architect of the universe’ Visvakarman, and ‘possessed of all divine attributes’, Visvadevyat, are applied to him.

In many passages, however, the dependent position of Sūrya is asserted. He is said to have been caused to shine by Indra, who also once carried off one of the wheels of his chariot. Mitra and Varuna sometimes conceal him by clouds and rain. In the Ramayana, Sanjnā, the daughter of Visvakarma, is the wife of Sūrya. The Asvins and Yama and Yami are among his children. As his brightness was too great for his wife, Visvakarma cut part of him away. The fragments fell blazing to the earth, and from them Visvakarma formed the discus of Vishnu, the trident of Siva, and the weapons of the other gods.

Savitri

Savitri is sometimes distinguished from Sūrya, sometimes identified with him. The two names are sometimes employed indiscriminately to denote the same deity. Sāyana says that the sun is called Savitri, before his rising and Sūrya from his rising to his setting. The name is supposed to mean Generator, or Stimulator and refers to the life-giving power of the sun.

Savitri is pre-eminently the golden deity, being golden-eyed, golden-handed, golden-tongued, the yellow-haired. He wears golden armour and bright in his aspect, he ascends a golden car, drawn by radiant, brown, white-footed horses, and beholding all creatures, he pursues an ascending and descending path. He is lord of all desirable things and sends blessings from the sky, from the atmosphere, and the earth. He removes evil dreams and drives off demons and sorcerers. He bestows immortality on the gods and prosperity on his worshippers.

The worship of Savitri has continued to the present time. It is to him that the Gāyatri is addressed at his rising by every devout Brahman in his daily prayers (sandhyā vandhanam). This short verse is as follows:

Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimohi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
May we attain that excellent glory of Savitri the god: So may he stimulate our prayers.[^3]

This verse was in its original use, a simple invocation of the sun to shed a benignant influence upon the customary offices of worship. But it came to be looked on as an omnipotent religious formula, sure to secure salvation from the round of births to the man who understands its inner meaning. In later Hinduism it is constantly extolled. Thus the Skanda Purāna declares:

Nothing in the Vedas is superior to the Gāyatri. No invocation is equal to the Gāyatri, as no city is equal to Kāsi. The Gāyatri is the mother of the Vedas and of Brahmans. By repeating it a man is saved. What is there indeed that cannot be effected by the Gāyatri? For the Gāyatri is Vishnu, Brahma, and Siva and the three Vedas.

Eleven hymns are addressed to Savitri in the Rig-veda.

Pushan

The word Pūshan comes from the root push, of which the primary idea is ’to nourish’. Pūshan is the protector and nourisher of cattle (pasupā). He was originally the sun as a god kind to shepherds. As a cowherd he carries an ox goad, and his car is drawn by goats. He is a guide and guardian of travellers on roads and journeys. He conducts the dead on the way to ’the fathers’. He is called the lover of his sister Sūrya a female form of the god Sūrya.

In later books he is represented as toothless, feeding on a kind of gruel, and the offerings made to him are, therefore, of ground in a mill. The cause of his being toothless is variously explained. One account is that at the Daksha sacrifice Rudra knocked out his teeth while he was eating the purodasa offering.

Pūshan is adored in eight hymns of the Rig-veda.

Vishnu

In the Rig-veda Vishnu is a deity of the fourth rank, less frequently adored than Pūshan, and he is the only one of the great gods of the later Hindu triad (trimurti) whose modern name appears in the Vedas. The name Vishnu seems to mean ‘pervading’. He seems to have been the sun thought of as swiftly traversing the three worlds or as rising, culminating and setting. Vishnu’s three steps, two near the world of men and one, the highest, in the heaven of ’the fathers’ and the devas, refer to these stations, or to him as passing over and protecting all. From this grew the story of the dwarf incarnation of Vishnu (vāmana avatāra) at the court of the arrogant king Bali. In Manu the name of Vishnu appears, but it is only in the later Hinduism of the Māhabhhārata and the Purānas that Vishnu’s supremacy is asserted. It need hardly be said that the Rig-veda contains no account of the incarnations of Vishnu.

Ushas

Ushas the goddess of dawn, the goddess Eos of the Greeks, is the only female deity invoked in the Veda with any frequency, and the only one to whom entire hymns, about twenty, are addressed. Ushas means ‘shining one’. Ushas is daughter of the Sky, sister of the Ādityas, elder sister of Night, loved by Sūrya, but vanishing at the moment that he seeks to lay hold of her with his rays. Agni and the gods are said to wake at the sound of the hymns sung to her at daybreak.

The worship of the Aryan began at daybreak; Ushas, the dawn, is the earliest object of his morning songs and worshippers sometimes claim credit for arousing her. The promise of the day is hailed with overflowing and inspiring joy; the feeling of relief as the burden of darkness is lifted off the world, as the demons are driven away, and as the freedom and cheerfulness of the day commence again, prompts wonderful poetry, and the songs to Ushas are among the finest in the Veda. She is addressed as a virgin in glittering robes, who chases away the darkness, or to whom her sister Night willingly yields her domain, who prepares a path for the sun; her appearance is the signal for the sacrifice; she rouses all beings from slumber, gives sight to the darkened, and power of motion to the prostrate and helpless. In the midst of such gladsome greetings, however the poet is reminded, by the thought of the many dawns that have thus shone upon the earth, and the many that are to follow them, of those, who, having witnessed the former ones are now passed away, and of those who shall welcome them when he is no more. So he is led to mournful reflections on the wasting away of life, as one day after another is subtracted from the time allotted to each mortal.[^4]

Two Hymns (Rig-veda i. 113 and vii. 77) are quoted in the Readings from the Vedas and will give some idea of the devotion of the early Aryans towards this goddess. It is to be noticed that she received no share of the soma-offering; that there are few references to sacrifice in the hymns addressed to her; and that Indra is said to have crushed her chariot with his thunderbolt.

Aryaman

The name Aryaman means ‘a devoted friend’. He is one of the sons of Aditi and is commonly invoked along with Varuna and Mitra. Like them he is a god of light, golden, pure, sinless, sleepless, many-eyed, a hater of falsehood. He is better known than the Ādityas Bhaga, Amśa and Daksha, but has not the same eminence as the great Ādityas, Varuna, Mitra, Sūrya and Savitri.

The Aśvins

The Aśvins are the twin gods of morning and evening twilight, or the morning and evening stars, sons of Aśvinī the wife of Sūrya who took the form of a mare. The word means ‘possessed of horses’ ‘a rider’. They are described as riding in a golden car, in which they are accompanied by the sun-maiden Sūryā, of whom they were the joint-husbands. They appear at dawn, yoke their car, and bring blessing to their worshippers. They are young and beautiful, swift as young falcons, and their car is drawn by birds or golden-winged horses. They are the guardians of the slow, and of the woman growing old unmarried. They are physicians giving sight to the blind, and health to the infirm. They are called the physicians of the gods. They renewed the youth of the sage Chyavana, and when the leg of the royal lady-warrior Viśpālā had been cut off in battle they gave her an iron one instead. Many other similar miracles are related of them. In the Satapatha Brāhmana (iv. 1.5.1) the Aśvins are rebuked by the other gods, because they ‘have wandered about very familiarly among men,’ and in the Mahābhārata, Śānti parva, verse 7589, they are called the Śūdras among the gods. But they are adored with fervent praises by the Vedic seers and they are even called the parents of Pūshan, the sun, because they precede his appearing.

II. THE GODS OF THE AIR

Vāyu or Vata

Both Vāyu and Vata mean ‘wind’ and Vāyu is god of the wind. He does not occupy a prominent place among the Vedic gods. In the Purusha-sukta Vāyu is said to have sprung from the breath of Purusha. Vāyu is also called the son-in-law of Tvastri. He is said to travel in a shining car drawn by a pair of red or purple horses or by ninety-nine or even by a thousand horses, but to be invisible. Indra and Vāyu often occupy the same car. In conjunction with Indra Vāyu has the right to the first draught of the soma libation. He can protect or prolong life.

The soul of gods, and of the world the offspring, This god according to his liking wanders, His sound is heard, but ne’er is seen his figure. This Vata let us now with offerings worship.
Rig-veda, x. 168. 3.

And, Vata, thou art our father, our brother, and our friend; cause us to live. From the treasure of immortality, which is deposited yonder in thy house, O Vata, give us to live.

Rig-veda, x. 186. 2.

Indra

Max Müller argued that because drops of rain were called indu, the god who sent them was called Indra, the ‘rainer’, the ‘irrigator’. But it is perhaps more likely that the name Indra means ‘strong, powerful’. Indra does not seem to have been worshipped by the Aryans before they came to India, but in India as lord of the thunderstorm he was the principal god of the Vedic Aryans. Indra is said to be the son of Dyaus and Aditi in the later mythology. In one Vedic verse his mother is said to be Ekashtaka. In the Purusa Sukta, Indra is said to have sprung with Agni from the mouth of Purusa and he is said to be one of several gods who were created by Soma.

He was at first only chief of the gods of the air and not originally ruler of such gods of the sky as Varuna and Dyaus. The Aryans had worshipped Dyaus and Varuna, the gods of the wide open sky before they came to India, but in India they found a land where the long hot season scorches the land and where drought and famine slay man and beast if the rain does not fall in due season. Perhaps they had worshipped a god of thunder in the Asiatic lands whence they had come, but whether that had been so or not, they now began to worship Indra, the god of the thunderstorm, with great earnestness; for to them it seemed that the thunder which so often precedes an Indian rain-storm was the sound of the conflict between the god of thunder and Vritra the demon of drought. In Indra’s favour was life. Without it death by famine was certain. Speedily, therefore, after the Aryans had entered India, the god of thunder and rain became the chief deity in the Vedic pantheon, and one-fourth of the Rig-veda is in his honour.

The story of Indra’s conflict with Vritra recurs again and again in the hymns, and Indra himself is described repeatedly. He is agile, strong, of irresistible might, handsome in face, with golden beard, and long-armed. He rides a golden car and carries a golden whip. Two swift steeds draw the car, created by the Ribhus, and his weapon is the thunderbolt forged for him by Tvastri. It is of gold or iron, and sometimes is said to have a thousand points. Indra is also said to have bow and arrows, and a hook or goad (ankusa). He uses a net to enmesh his enemies. He drinks great draughts of soma-juice, even from the day of his birth, ’like a thirsty stag’. The intoxication of the soma stirs him ’like violent blasts’. He hurries off, escorted by the Maruts and sometimes accompanied by Vishnu to do battle with his enemies, especially with Vritra. Heaven and earth quake with affright at the sound of his thunder. His enemy is pierced and shattered. The rain descends and the land is blessed. Sometimes the clouds are described as cities or fortresses of his enemies and Indra is said to overthrow them.

And so his praises are sung in countless passages:

There is nothing unconquered by thee: no one like thee is known among the gods. No one yet to be born, or yet born, can rival thee. Do, great god, whatever thou wiliest to do.
Rig-veda, 165. 9

His wife is Indrani, but he has many other consorts. One hymn describes the exultation of Indrani over her rival wives.

The two characteristics that stand out most clearly in the picture of Indra given in the Vedas are his delight in war and his love for the intoxicating soma-juice.

As soon as he was born, the slayer of Vritra grasped his arrow and asked his mother: ‘Who are they that are renowned as fierce warriors?’
Rig-veda, viii. 45. 4.

On the day that thou wast born, thou didst, from love of it, drink the mountain juice of the Soma-plant. Of old, the youthful mother who bore thee, satiated thee with it in the house of thy mighty father.

Rig-veda, iii. 48. 2.

The sensations of the god after drinking soma are described in one of the hymns:

The draughts which I have drunk impel me like violent blasts. The five tribes of men appear to me not even as a mote: I have quaffed the soma. The two worlds do not equal one-half of me: I have quaffed the soma. One-half of me is in the sky, and I have drawn the other down. I have quaffed the soma.
Rig-veda, x. 119.

His victories are ascribed to the effects of the soma-juice.

These draughts inspired thee, O lord of the brave, these were vigour, these libations, in battles, when for the sake of the poet, the sacrificer, thou struckest down irresistibly ten thousands of enemies.
From battle to battle thou advancest bravely, from town to town thou destroyest all this with might, when thou, Indra, with him who makes the foe bow down (i.e. the thunderbolt) as thy friend, struckest down from afar the deceiver Namuchi (a demon of drought).
Rig-veda, i. 53.

In the later literature Indra becomes king in Svarga and many instances of adultery are told of him, notably, that, in which he corrupted Ahalya, the wife of Gautama, by which he became known as ‘Ahalya’s lover’.

Then it came about that, as Indra had superseded Varuna, he too was superseded. He had at first seemed to the Aryan warrior in a dry land the very embodiment of their own valour, possessed of their own love for soma, and granting them the rain that they needed. When men of different character grew up in a later civilization the presentation of the supreme in Indra no longer satisfied them, and Indra became only a figure in the crowded verses of the Mahabharata or in the stories in the Puranas.

Rudra

The name Rudra means ’the howler’ or ’the roarer’ and in the Rig-veda it also often seems to mean ‘ruddy’ or ‘red’. Rudra is the god of storms and father of the ‘Rudras’ or Maruts. He is celebrated in only three or four hymns in the Rig-veda and his name is not mentioned quite so often as that of Vishnu. He is generally armed with bow and arrows and sometimes with a thunderbolt and his terrible arrows bring death or disease on men and cattle. He is called ’terrible as a wild beast’ and ’the ruddy boar of heaven’.

But he is not an entirely malevolent demon. He can preserve from calamity and give prosperity to man and beast. He is termed ‘possessor of healing remedies’ and ‘greatest of physicians’.

But the main interest in the study of the character of Rudra as drawn in the Rig-veda is that Rudra receives the epithet siva, and is the link between the gods of the Aryans and the demon worship of the races that were in India before the Aryans reached it. The origin of this word siva is difficult to trace if it is sought among purely Sanskrit roots. But it is derived quite naturally from the Dravidian root se, sev, siva meaning ‘red’, ‘ruddy’ and so ‘beautiful’ and ‘right’. Whatever its derivation the word siva is not used in the Vedas as the name of any god, but it is used as an adjective meaning ‘propitious’, ‘auspicious’, ‘favourable,’ and in this sense it is applied to Rudra, to placate him, for he was the most terrible god that the Aryans knew. In the later Vedas this epithet is almost exclusively reserved for him though it is still used occasionally of other gods. It is interesting to notice, especially if Rudra means ‘red’, that in Tamil verse, a thousand years old, the epithet seyyan, ’the red one’ (aral pol seyya, ‘red one like fire’) is similarly regularly applied to the god of destruction. (Tiruvasagam 7.42; 29.27). As the Vedic period advanced Rudra began to be thought of not only as a god of storms in general, but as an universal destroyer. Then the epithet Siva became a proper name and men spoke of Siva instead of Rudra as the god who caused destruction. As the Aryans and the Dravidians came into closer relation, the Aryans found that these people, whom they called Dasyus, worshipped destructive demons somewhat like Rudra with blood offerings, as they do at certain great festivals all through South India to this day. And it may be guessed that as the Dravidians learned a little of the religion of their conquerors they also found that Rudra, who was beginning to be called Siva, resembled their own deities in some ways. And so it might come about that Rudra, now called Siva, the ‘Mahadeva’ or ‘great god’ of the Aryans, and Siva, ’the red god’ of the Dasyus were identified by both Aryans and Dasyus and henceforth were one deity. If Siva was originally a Dravidian word this would happen all the more naturally. As larger and larger numbers of non-Aryans were included in the fourfold simple caste-system of earlier Hinduism the name of Rudra, the Aryan storm-god, passed away, and Siva, the god of destruction, in contrast with Vishnu, the preserver, and Brahma the creator, took his place and became one of the supremely important triad of gods (trimurti) of later Hinduism. This may not have happened everywhere, and it is only possible to guess at the process, but it must have been in some such way that non-Aryan malevolent demon deities became identified with Siva, most terrible of gods, and Durga, most awful of goddesses, in later Hinduism.[^5]

An interesting example of this oneness of the Siva of later Hinduism with the more ancient demon deities of the Dravidians is found in the name given to demon temples in the Tamil Districts of South India. In idiomatic Tamil a demon shrine is called pey-kovil ‘demon palace.’ Such a shrine is often dedicated to demon deities with such entirely Dravidian names as Veppa marattu karuppan, ’the black god dwelling in the neem-tree’ or Mavadiyal ‘she who dwells in the mango-tree’. In Tamil that has been affected by Sanskrit the term used is Isvaran kovil, which means ’the palace of Isvaran.’ Isvaran is a Tamil form of the Sanskrit word meaning ‘Lord’ and is applied in Tamil particularly to Siva. So that in common speech Isvaran ’the lord Siva’—an Aryan term—and the Dravidian word pey ’the demon’ are treated as synonymous. And so it may be that the little demon deities of South India are linked through Sivan ’the Red One’ with Rudra and the gods of the early Aryans.

Parjanya

Parjanya is a god who sheds rain, invoked in only three hymns and only mentioned about thirty times in the Rig-veda. In several passages the name simply means a ‘rain cloud’. He is called the lord of all moving creatures, the soul of all things, the son of Dyaus, the father of the soma-plant.

Parjanya is really one of the older deities whom the Aryans venerated before they entered India and Persia. In curious proof of this we find that this god was worshipped as a god of thunder under the name Perkunas in Lithuania, on the shores of the Baltic, far away from India, by quite another branch of the Aryans. Like Dyaus Parjanya was fading out of the memory of the Indian Aryans when the hymns of the Vedas were composed. Hence Parjanya does not stand out clearly and in later times he gave place to Indra to whom his name was applied.

The Bhrigus

The Bhrigus were probably an ancient tribe of priests. They are said to have cherished the sacred fire and to have made chariots. Though mentioned as divine beings along with Agni, and classed with the gods of the air, they are of inferior importance, little higher than the Ribhus with whom they are sometimes associated.

Maruts

The name Marut was thought by Max Müller to mean ’the smasher’ and to be applied to the gods of the cyclone or tornado. Benfey considered that they were the personifications of the souls of the dead and that their name was connected with mar, mri, to die. The name may also be connected with an old Sanskrit root meaning to shine. The Maruts are thrice-sixty or only twenty-seven in number, and are the sons of Indra and speckled cow Prisni which represents the clouds. They are also said to be sons of Rudra, and sons of Heaven. They are frequently associated with Indra in his expeditions as his allies and friends.

Spears rest upon your shoulders, ye Maruts; ye have anklets on your feet, golden ornaments on your breasts, lustre in your cars, fiery lightnings in your hands, and golden helmets placed upon your heads.
Rig-veda, v. 54. 11.

They cause the earth and the mountains to quake. They rend trees and devour forests like wild elephants. They have iron teeth. They ride with whips in their hands. They aid Indra in his conquest of Vritra. They are the favourite deities of some of the Rishis and are often praised in the hymns.

III. THE GODS OF THE EARTH

Agni

Agni is the god of fire, the Ignis of the Latins, and the Ogni of the Slavonians. Next to Indra he is the most important god in the Rig-veda, being celebrated in more than two hundred hymns. The first hymn in the Rig-veda is addressed to him, and the other Books, all but two, begin with hymns to him.

Agni is the sacrificial fire of the Aryans, and all the ritual of the sacrifice centred round the sacred fire. Hence the constant reference to Agni in the hymns, which were chanted while the sacrifice was being prepared or performed.

Fire, it must be remembered, is always wonderful to primitive peoples. Its production by the friction caused by rubbing two dry sticks together or by the striking of two flints is almost as strange as the flash of the lightning. The benefits of light and warmth that fire gives and its service in preparing food are regarded as direct gifts from the gods. Thinkers, who are the singers or poets of early peoples, come to see a connexion between the light and heat of the fire and the light and heat of the sun, and then trace the ripening of grain and fruit to the same beneficent power. It is only a step from this to the conviction that all light and all heat are the manifestation of the power of one great God.

Various accounts are given in the Vedas of the origin of Agni. He is said to have been brought from afar, to have been generated by Indra between two clouds or stones, or by Indra and Vishnu, or by the gods, or to be the son of Dyaus and Prithivi. Yet he is the father of the gods. He is called dvijanman, ‘having two births,’ either as born of Dyaus and Prithivi, or of two sacrificial sticks. His springing from the sacrificial sticks is elsewhere frequently mentioned. Wonderful is his growth. His mother cannot suckle him, but clarified butter is his food. The ten maidens sometimes said to produce him are the ten fingers that twirl the upright piece of wood on the lower piece to produce a spark by friction. As he is born on earth among men, in the air, and in the heavens, he has a triple birth. He is also said to have been born from the waters. As there is a fire in every house, Agni is said to have many births and to dwell in every home.

Agni is an immortal who takes up his abode graciously among men. He is the household priest (purohita, ritvij, hotri or brahman) who wakes the Dawn. He is the most adorable of sacrificers, divinest among sages, wise director and accomplisher of all sacrifices, knows all the times of the ceremonies and can put right the mistakes of men, is ‘father of sacrifices’, a swift messenger between heaven and earth, conveying the hymns and offerings of the worshippers, calling the gods to the sacrifices, and he is sometimes described as the mouth or tongue through which gods and men participate in the sacrifice. He is the king of men, the lord of the household (grihapati) and the guest of every house, friendly to all, father, mother, brother, son, kinsman and friend. He drives away demons, rakshasas, watching over men with his thousand eyes, and consuming the enemies of those who are the enemies of his worshippers. All blessings come from him, even rain, but his chief gifts are household prosperity and children. He is called goblin-slayer, butter-fed, destroyer of darkness, bright-flaming, tawny-haired. He has burning teeth, is all devouring, roars like a lion, is borne on a chariot of lightning, or on a golden car. As he is endowed with all these characteristics his worshippers ascribe to him the production of the two worlds, say that he caused the sun to ascend the sky, praise him as creator of all living and moving creatures, declare that all obey his commands, that the gods worship him, that those who venerate him will prosper,

The Rig-Veda and Vedic Religion

THE VEDIC GODS

the personifications of the souls of the dead and that their name was connected with mar, mri, to die. The name may also be connected with an old Sanskrit root meaning to shine.

The Maruts are thrice-sixty or only twenty-seven in number, and are the sons of Indra and speckled cow Prisni which represents the clouds. They are also said to be sons of Rudra, and sons of Heaven. They are frequently associated with Indra in his expeditions as his allies and friends.

Spears rest upon your shoulders, ye Maruts; ye have anklets on your feet, golden ornaments on your breasts, lustre in your cars, fiery lightnings in your hands, and golden helmets placed upon your heads.
Rig-veda, v. 54. 11.

They cause the earth and the mountains to quake. They rend trees and devour forests like wild elephants. They have iron teeth. They ride with whips in their hands. They aid Indra in his conquest of Vrittra. They are the favourite deities of some of the Rishis and are often praised in the hymns.

III. THE GODS OF THE EARTH

Agni

Various accounts are given in the Vedas of the origin of Agni. He is said to have been brought from afar, to have been generated by Indra between two clouds or stones, or by Indra and Vishnu, or by the gods, or to be the son of Dyaus and Prithivi. Yet he is the father of the gods. He is called dvijanman, ‘having two births,’ either as born of Dyaus and Prithivi, or of two sacrificial sticks. His springing from the sacrificial sticks is elsewhere frequently mentioned. Wonderful is his growth. His mother cannot suckle him, but clarified butter is his food. The ten maidens sometimes said to produce him are the ten fingers that twirl the upright piece of wood on the lower piece to duce a spark by friction. As he is born on earth among men, in the air, and in the heavens, he has a triple birth. He is also said to have been born from the waters. As there is a fire in every house, Agni is said to have many births and to dwell in every home.

He is occasionally identified with other gods and even goddesses, Indra, Vishnu, Varuna, Pushan, Sarasvati and others. Agni was worshipped by the Aryans in the fire kindled each morning while the family gathered round it in awe. As the clarified butter (ghi) was poured on, and the flame rose it was a sign that Agni was present and received the offering. At nightfall when the family gathered round the fire for warmth or light Agni seemed present in the flames, a kindly god, ready to guard and bless his worshipper through the long hours of darkness when the other gods had disappeared and all sorts of evil demons and goblins were abroad. Agni was near men and stayed with them. Thus he typified to the earliest thinkers in India the lovingkindness of God.

Soma

In two points the Hindus of to-day differ greatly from their Aryan ancestors. The ancient Aryans occasionally ate meat, even beef, and they delighted in drinking the intoxicating juice of the soma plant. Nearly a whole book of the Rig-veda, containing 114 hymns, is devoted to the praise of this soma, either as the juice of the plant or that juice deified, and constant references are made to soma in other hymns.

Professor Whitney explains that the Aryans thought intoxication to be a sort of divine inspiration; and so worshipped and deified its cause.

The simple-minded Aryan people, whose whole religion was a worship of the wonderful powers and phenomena of nature, had no sooner perceived that this liquid had the power to elevate the spirits, and produce a temporary frenzy, under the influence of which the individual was prompted to, and capable of, deeds beyond his natural powers, than they found in it something divine; it was to their apprehension a god, endowing those into whom it entered with godlike powers; the plant which afforded it became to them the king of plants; the process of preparing it was a holy sacrifice; the instruments used therefore were sacred.[^1]

Nor were the Aryans who came to India the first to worship Soma. The Aryans who found their way into Persia also adored it as Haoma, and said many of the same things about it that the Indian Aryans said, so that it is clear that Soma was a divinity reverenced by the Aryans before they were divided into these two races, and belongs to a very early time in the history of the primitive Aryans.

The soma plant from which the inspiring juice is pressed grew on mountains and has been supposed to be one of the ‘milk-weeds’, or asclepiads, perhaps that called sarcostemma viminale or the asclepias acida, which all contain a milk-like juice. But the references in the Vedas do not enable us to identify it with any certainty. No modern plant has the attributes of the deified plant of the Vedas.

So long as Vedic worship lasted the ancient belief in the divine power of the soma-juice continued. The hymns addressed to Soma the god were intended to be sung to him to gain his favour while the soma plant was being crushed in the press and the juice extracted. Then the worshippers drank and rejoiced, praising the plant, its juice and the god without distinction, as may be seen in the following verses and in the readings from the Vedas.

We have drunk the soma, we have become immortal, we have entered into light, we have known the gods. What can an enemy now do to us, or what can the malice of any mortal effect, O thou immortal god?
Rig-veda, viii. 48. 3.

All the gods delight in the soma-juice. Indra hath drunk, Agni hath drunk; all deities have drunk their fill.
Rig-veda, vii. 58. 11.

O Soma, gladden Varuna and Mitra; cheer Indra Pavamana! Indra Vishnu. Cheer thou the gods, the company of Maruts: Indu, cheer mighty Indra to rejoicing.
Rig-veda, ix. 90. 5.

Make Vayu glad, for furtherance and bounty; cheer Varuna and Mitra as they cleanse thee. Gladden the gods, gladden the host of Maruts; make Heaven and Earth rejoice, O God, O Soma.
Rig-veda, ix. 97. 42.

But Indra is the deity especially addicted to love of the soma.

Even as a thirsty steer who roams the deserts, may he drink eagerly the milked-out soma.
Rig-veda, v. 36. 1.

Then Indra at a single draught drank the contents of thirty pails, pails that were filled with soma-juice.
Rig-veda, viii. 66. 4.

His belly, drinking deepest draughts of soma, like an ocean swells.
Rig-veda, i. 8. 7.

The soma plant is said to have been brought to the earth from the sky by a falcon, or to have been found on a mountain. It is sometimes said to have been conducted to the Gandharvas by the daughter of Surya, or to be the offspring of Parjanya, the rain-god. In the Satapatha Brahmana the Gayatri is said to have become a bird and to have brought Soma from the sky. In the Taittiriya Brahmana Prajapati is said to have created the divine soma and the three Vedas after him.

Soma as a god is said to have had the thirty-three daughters of Prajapati as his wives.

Soma is said to clothe the naked, heal the sick, to bestow sight on the blind, to give heaven to his worshippers, and to exhilirate even such gods as Varuna, Mitra and Indra. He has a car and weapons, and destroys foes. Soma inspires Indra to conquest:

Impetuous as a bull, he chose the soma, and quaffed in three-fold sacrifice the juices. Indra with his own great and deadly thunder smote into pieces Vritra, worst of Vritras.
Rig-veda, i. 32. 3 and 5.

Soma is the generator of the hymns, creator of the gods, king of gods and men, elevated over all worlds, thousand-eyed. Soma is ‘priest of the gods, the leader of singers, a rishi among sages, a bull among wild animals, a falcon among kites, an axe in the woods’.

Rig-veda, ix, 96. 6.

The hymns to Soma describe the purification and preparation of the juice with much fanciful imagery. The god is said to fly like a bird to settle in the vats. The sound of the flowing juice is like that of a roaring bull. In later times Soma is identified with the moon. In the Atharva-veda Soma means the moon.

In Aryan worship libations of soma-juice were poured out by the worshipper as drink for the gods. In later times when worship had become elaborate, the hymns originally sung during the extraction of the soma-juice from the plant were collected from the Rig-veda and made the basis of the Sama-veda and were chanted by the Udgatri priests, while the Soma sacrifice was being prepared.

Yama and Yami

Yama and Yami (meaning ’the twins’) were the son and daughter of Vivasvat, the sun, and Saranyu, the dawn. They are said to have been the first human beings. In the tenth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda, Yama is described as refusing to treat Yami as his wife. In the Atharva-veda Yama is the first of men who died, and he found the way to the celestial world. He gives abodes in that heaven to the pious.

He is said to have two fierce dogs which guard the way to his abode and wander about among men as his messengers, and he sends a bird as the herald of doom. In the Atharva-veda Mrityu or Death is said to be his messenger. But nowhere in the Rig-veda is Yama regarded as having anything to do with the punishment of the wicked. That is an idea that became current in later Hinduism, in which he is the judge and punisher of the dead like the Greek Pluto and Minos.

Prithivi

The earth-goddess, or the earth personified under the name Prithivi—’the broad one’—has only one short hymn addressed to herself. She is generally associated with Dyaus, and invoked along with him. She is the mother of all beings.

IV. THE ABSTRACT GODS

Aditi and the Adityas

Aditi means that which is unbound, free, and so ‘freedom’ is the name of a goddess, often mentioned, though there is no hymn expressly in her honour. She seems to be a personification of light as the cause of the universe.

Aditi is the heavens; Aditi is mid-air; Aditi is the mother and the sire and the son. Aditi is all gods; Aditi is men in the five classes; Aditi is all that hath been born and shall be born.
Rig-veda, i. 89. 10.

Aditi is asked for blessings of children and cattle and for protection, but her two most notable characteristics are that: (i) she is the mother of the Adityas and (ii) that like Varuna the chief of her sons, she can heal suffering and forgive sin.

The Adityas, the sons of Aditi, are more frequently mentioned than their mother. In Rig-veda, ii. 27. 1 six are mentioned: Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Varuna, Daksha, and Amsa. In x. 72. 8. 9, it is said that Aditi had eight sons, of whom she presented only seven to the gods, casting out Marttanda, the eighth, though she is said to have afterwards brought him forward. Varuna was considered the chief.

In after times the Adityas were increased to twelve, representing the sun in the twelve months of the year. Varuna and Mitra assumed special characters, but in the beginning the Adityas were the gods of the eternal celestial light, not specially the sun or the moon or the stars, but generally the eternal sustainers of the luminous life, which exists behind all these.[^2]

Prajapati

The name Prajapati means the ’lord of creatures’. In the Vedas it is originally an epithet applied to Savitri, Soma, Indra, Tvastri, Agni, Hiranya-garbha. Later it was the personal name of the god who bestows progeny and cattle. Sometimes Prajapati is invoked as one god among the other ’thirty-three’ but afterwards as a creator. In the impressive one hundred and twenty-first hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda in answer to the refrain, ‘What god shall we with sacrifice worship?’ the answer is finally given.

Prajapati! thou only comprehendest all these created things, and none beside thee. Grant us our hearts’ desire when we invoke thee: may we have store of riches in possession.

In the Atharva-veda and White Yajur-veda (Vajasaneyi-samhita) and regularly in the Brahmanas Prajapati is spoken of as the supreme father of the gods, and Purusa is identified with him. In the Sutras he is identified with Brahma; In the Satapatha Brahmana Prajapati is said to have been himself half mortal and half immortal.

Prajapati created living creatures. From his higher vital breath he created the gods; from his lower vital breath he created men. Afterwards he created Death the devourer for all living creatures. Of that Prajapati one-half was mortal, the other immortal, and with that half which was mortal he was afraid of Death.

Satapatha Brahmana, x. 1. 4. 1.

Misery, death, smote Prajapati when he was creating living beings. He performed austerity for a thousand years to get free from misery.

Satapatha Brahmana, x. 4. 4. 1.

In reading the texts about Prajapati it is clear that while he is sometimes treated as a god of secondary importance, later on he represents the attempt to express the abstract idea of the supreme first cause of all things.

Sraddha Sarasvati and other Goddesses

It was powerful, war-like, generous gods that appealed most to the imagination of Vedic singers and little is said about the goddesses. Nearly all the great gods have wives, Agni’s wife is Agnāyi, Indra’s wife is Indrāni, Varuna’s wife is Varunāni, and so on. But goddesses as wives of the great gods are scarcely noticed in the Vedas, and such goddesses as are specially mentioned—Prithivi, Aditi, Ushas, Vach—are worshipped for the special characteristics that have been mentioned in the accounts already given of them.

In the Rig-veda Sarasvati is a river, and a river-goddess, invoked to be present a sacrifice offered on her banks, and her influence helped the sages to compose hymns. She is called the best of mothers, of rivers and of goddesses (Rig-veda, ii. 41. 16). In the Rig-veda Sarasvati and Vach are distinct, and it was in later times that the two were identified, and that Sarasvati became under different names the wife of Brahma and the goddess of wisdom.

Apas, the waters, Aranyani, the goddess of forest solitude and Sraddha, religious faith are mentioned with several other goddesses, but not in any noteworthy fashion. The word Lakshmi occurs in the Rig-veda once as meaning ‘auspicious’ but not as the name of the goddess of good fortune. In the Atharva-veda, vii. 115. 1, many Lakshmis, some good and some bad, are spoken of. It was left to later and debased Hinduism to accept the worship of such deities as Durga and Kali, and to sanction the excesses of Sakti-worship.

Vach

Vach, meaning speech, is a goddess personifying speech as the means by which man may obtain knowledge. She is represented as created by Prajapati and, in a legend, that is repulsive, as his mate. Vach was sold by the gods to the Gandharvas in exchange for soma. She is the ‘mother of the Vedas’ and is also the wife of Indra. In later literature Vach is identified with Sarasvati and was wife of Brahma under various names. As Sarasvati she was the goddess of wisdom and eloquence.

Two hymns in the tenth book of the Rig-veda are addressed to her.

Brihaspati and Brahmanaspati

In the Rig-veda Brihaspati and Brahmanaspati are equivalent and mean ’lord of prayer’. Brihaspati is a deity, in whom the action of the worshipper upon the gods is personified. He is the suppliant, the sacrificer, the priest who intercedes with the gods on behalf of men, and protects them from the wicked. He represents the priests and the priestly order. He is also designated as the purohita of the gods. He is the lord and protector of prayer. He is described as destroying the demon Vala and driving forth the cows, i.e. causing the clouds to yield their rain. He is also described as the father of the gods; and creator of the gods like a black-smith; to have a hundred wings; to be armed with an iron axe. In some passages he is identified with Agni, but this opposed by others. In later times he is a rishi and regent of the planet Jupiter.

Ka

The one hundred and twenty-first hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda has as the refrain of each of the first nine verses: What god shall we adore with our oblation? The word ‘ka’ is the Sanskrit interrogative pronoun ‘what?’ In later times this interrogative was treated as a proper name, the question became an assertion, and the refrain of the hymn reads:

Ka is the god whom we shall adore with our oblation.

In later Vedic literature Ka is a synonym for Prajapati, Brahma, Vishnu and other gods. In the Puranas, Ka appears as a recognized god, as a supreme god, with a genealogy of his own, perhaps even with a wife. The Mahabharata identifies Ka with Daksha, and the Bhagavata Purana applies the term to Kasyapa.

Kama

In later Hinduism Kama is the god of sexual desire, but in the Atharva-veda Kama is the desire for good in general, and is exalted as the creator of all. In the Rig-veda desire is said to have been the first impulse that arose in the One in the beginning: ‘Kama, the primal seed and germ of the spirit’ (Rig-veda, x. 129. 4). According to some Kama was son of Dharma, the god of justice and Sraddha, the goddess of faith. It is in the Puranas that the stories of the temptation of Siva by Kama is told, and that he is described as armed with a bow of sugar-cane, with a line of bees as his bowstring and flower-tipped arrows.

Visve Devas

Sixty hymns are addressed to the Visve Devas. This is a term meaning ‘All-gods’ and was invented to include all the devas so that none should be omitted when an invocation was uttered at a sacrifice which was meant for all. Later this term became the name of a group of ten deities, sons of Visva, daughter of Daksha, particularly worshipped at Shraddha ceremonies.

V. INFERIOR DEITIES

Tvastri

Tvastri is the Vulcan of the Romans. He is the most skilful of workmen, who is versed in all wonderful contrivances. He sharpens and carries the great iron axe of Brahmanaspati and forges the thunderbolts of Indra. He forms husband and wife for each other. He has given to the heaven and earth and to all things their form. He is master of the universe, the first-born protector and leader. He bestows long life, puts speed into the legs of a horse, gives blessings, and is possessed of abundant wealth.

In later times Tvastri is regarded as one of the Adityas. He is said to have had twin children. One was a daughter, Saranyu, who married Vivasvat and became mother of the Asvins. The other was a son, Visvarupa, who had three heads, six eyes, and three mouths, and was slain by Indra.

He is connected with the Ribhus who fashioned Indra’s chariot and there was enmity between him and them because they made a single sacrificial cup of his manufacture into four cups.

The Ribhus

The name Ribhu means skilful and the Ribhus are said to be three sons of Sudhanvan, a descendant of Angiras, called Ribhu, Vibhvan and Vaja. They are celebrated in the Rig-veda as skilful workmen, who fashioned Indra’s chariot and horses, the car of the Asvins and the cow of Brihaspati, and made their parents young again. By command of the gods, and with a promise of exaltation to divine honours, they made a single sacrificial cup fashioned by Tvastri into four. They are also spoken of as supporters of the sky. Eleven hymns are addressed to them.

Visvakarman

The name Visvakarman simply means ‘all creator’, ‘all doer’ and was originally an epithet of any powerful god; but in course of time it came to designate a special god, Visvakarman, the great architect of the universe. As such, two hymns are addressed to him.

In later books he is identified with Tvastri. In the Ramayana he is represented as having built the city of Lanka for the rakshasas.

He presides over manual labour as well as over the sixty-four manual arts. He is represented in one hymn as the All-Father, the one all-seeing God, with eyes, faces, arms and feet on every side, who blows forth heaven and earth with his arms and wings.

Gandharvas and Apsarases

Apsaras was a celestial water nymph and the Apsarases are heavenly nymphs loved by a class of male genius called Gandharvas. Some of the Apsarases mated with mortal men. Thus Urvasi was loved by Pururavas, and there is a hymn from him to her in the Rig-veda (x. 95). In the later literature the Apsarases are celestial courtesans and the Gandharvas are attendants on the greater gods.

Divine Priests

Manu the first sacrificer and the ancestor of the human race is among the priests and heroes mentioned in the Rig-veda. There are also groups of ancient priests called Angirases and Bhrigus, and the seldom mentioned Seven Rishis, afterwards regarded as the seven stars in the constellation of the Great Bear.

VI. DEMONS AND DEIFIED ANIMALS AND OBJECTS

Demons

There are many kinds of demons, and many individual demons specially named in the hymns. Roughly speaking all may be divided into two classes. There are the asuras, or ’living spirits’, the opponents of the devas in their efforts to help their worshippers. Naturally the early invaders considered that the gods of their enemies the Dasyus were asuras. Indeed, the words dasa and dasyu are often used in the sense of demon. The demon Vritra, who held off rain and caused drought, is the most notable of these asuras.

The rakshasas are the second class. They are goblins that infest the earth and are as hostile to men as the asuras are to the gods. They have all sorts of horrible shapes, are deformed and of dreadful colours. The pisachas of the later Vedas—the pey of the southern Tamil Dravidians—are among the most dreaded of rakshasas in the later literature, but they are scarcely mentioned in the Rig-veda, which may be an indication that as yet the invaders had not acquired the knowledge of the demons of the original inhabitants which they gained later and which has such important though indefinite influence in modern Hinduism.

The Serpent

Though the demon of drought, Vritra had a serpent form there is no trace of serpent-worship in the Rig-veda, and it is in the later literature that the semi-divine Nagas and other serpent-folk are found. The whole subject of serpent-worship is obscure. It is more than likely that the tribes in the land before the Aryans came there were serpent-worshippers. Such worship is common in South India. The cobra in particular—called ’the good snake’, nalla pampu, in Tamil—is a regular object of worship. And stones on which serpents are carved, called naga-linga are exceedingly common.

The Horse

The gods possess heavenly horses, sometimes winged, to draw their cars. Two hymns (Rig-veda, i. 162 and 163) show that the horse was a sacrificial victim in the earliest times.

The Cow

Though the Aryans ate beef, and termed a guest goghna, ‘one for whom a cow is slain’, there is evidence that they already treated the cow as a sacred animal. It is called Aghnya, ’not to be killed’, and from the ancient Persian literature it would seem that, before the Aryans separated into different races, the many benefits that are bestowed by the cow had led it to be looked on as a most auspicious creature. But it is in the Brahmanas and the Atharva-veda that the worship of the cow is fully recognized.

Sacrificial and other implements

Sacrificial implements, the sacrificial post to which the victim was tied, the plough and weapons of war are occasionally deified. This is practically the same as the modern ayutha puja, the worship of weapon or tool once a year—a ceremony common to all ranks of Hindus—a very ancient practice indeed as the Mahabharata shows.

VII. THE PITRIS: ANCESTOR SERVICE AND WORSHIP

Apart from the worship of the devas the respect for the spirits of the departed ancestors was another form of piety ever present in the minds of the early Aryans, as it is in that of all primitive peoples in one form or another. It is often referred to in the Rig-veda, and in the sraddha ceremonies of modern Hinduism has become a very important part of the popular religion, which it is obligatory on even the most latitudinarian Hindu to observe annually at all costs.

It has two distinct stages.

There is first that stage in which early peoples believe that the soul of the departed, like the man alive, depends on food and drink for its continued existence. Those who hold this belief in this simple form of course consider the soul to be a material substance, or at most have but a dim idea of a non-material spiritual existence. And just as they felt it their duty to provide their father or mother with food while still alive, so they thought it their duty to continue to provide them with sustenance after they were dead. Food was therefore laid out in the open, and the souls of the dead were called to take it. The Dravidians, even the lowest of them, practised this piety as well as the Aryans, and to this day the Tamil Paraiyan believes with all his heart that if for any reason, such as death away from his relatives or quarrels about the property among the dead man’s heirs, the departed spirit is not cared for, it must become a malignant demon.

Here another idea is found which goes back to the very earliest times among the Aryans. They thought that the dead ancestor had to make a journey into some realms beyond this existence, either in the east whence the bright gods seemed to come or in the west, where lay the kingdom of Yama. And so in the days immediately after a man had died offerings were made to provide him with strength, and, in later thought, to provide the spiritual essence of his soul with a bodily form, so that he might accomplish the journey to the realms of the fathers.

Up to this point piety to the dead is an act of service rather than worship. Ancestor-worship proper begins when the natural awe of the dead, or the traditions of the prowess or wisdom of some ancestor leads to the conviction that the dead man possesses power still to influence the affairs of his descendants. The memory of their great deeds or of their judicious sayings was invoked to inspire courage or to settle disputes. It was a simple transition to the belief that the man who imitated their valour in battle was helped by them, or that the man who obeyed their precepts was blessed by them, while the man who disregarded them was accursed. And so the presentation of offerings ceased to be merely dutiful service and became religious worship; the spirits of the ancestors thus became gods in the families of their descendants; and the offerings made to them were intended to secure their care for the family or tribe to which the dead had belonged.

The ancient Aryan race, before it had left its original home and separated into different lands, had reached this stage of belief about ancestors and so alongside the worship of the gods there was the worship of the ancestors, or ’the Fathers,’ the Pitris. Many passages might be quoted in proof of this:

May the rising Dawns protect me, may the flowing Rivers protect me, may the firm Mountains protect me, may the Fathers protect me at this invocation of the gods.
Rig-veda, vi. 52. 4.

Let not the gods injure us here, nor our early fathers, who know the realms.
Rig-veda, iii. 55. 2.

There is another distinction that is worth attention. The ancestors of the great Aryan families, though historically next to nothing was known about them, were exalted in tradition till they become almost as great as the gods, while the fathers but lately departed are scarcely more than remembered. In accordance with this distinction the term Pitri sometimes means ancestor of a tribe or race or even of mankind, as mankind seemed to the Aryan singer, but when used of an ordinary man’s fathers, the term includes only his father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

The offerings were pindas, balls of meal or rice or of meat and rice mixed with milk, curds, and flowers. The daily Pitriyajna, or ancestor worship, is one of the five sacrifices, sometimes called the great sacrifices, which every married man ought to perform day by day. In this worship the father was the high-priest of the family, and controlled the worship of the ancestors of the family. He alone knew the special ritual which was traditional in his family, and which had to be maintained unchanged, if the favour of the dead was to be retained. He taught the rites to his son and, as high-priest of the ancestral rites of the family, he was its acknowledged head.

In the Vedas the Pitris are very often invoked along with Agni or other devas, and sometimes the adjective deva is applied to the Pitris, the Pitris never become devas. They are thought of as living in a state of blessedness in the world where Yama reigns. They dwell in festivity with Yama. Agni is supposed to convey the souls of the righteous dead to their abode, but according to the Atharva-veda (xviii-2.27) Death performs the office as the messenger of Yama. Agni, of course, here represents the fire of the funeral pyre. Led by Agni the spirit of the dead leaves behind on earth all that is evil and proceeding by the paths on which his ancestors have gone, he soars to the realms of eternal light in a car or on wings, wafted by the Maruts. There he regains his ancient body in a complete form.

Each parted member, severed from thy body, thy vital breaths that in the wind have vanished, With all of these, piece after piece, shall Fathers who dwell together meet and reunite thee.
Atharva-veda, xviii 2. 26.

In that realm, by the favour of Yama, he enters on a new life of happiness in the presence of the gods and full of delights.

This was the thought of Yama when he answered:

This man is mine. Let him come here to riches.
Atharva-veda, xviii 2. 37.

Yama himself is sometimes addressed as if he were one of the Fathers, the first of mortals that died or that trod the path of the Fathers leading to the common sunset in the West. But his real nature is never completely forgotten and, as the god of the setting sun, though he is the leader of the Fathers, he is not one of the Fathers himself.

The following verses from one of the hymns of the Rig-veda shows how ancestors were invited to come to the sacrifice:

May the soma-loving Fathers, the lowest, the highest, and the middle, arise. May the gentle and righteous Fathers who have come to life (again) protect us in these invocations!
Come hither to us with your help, you Fathers who sit on the grass! We have prepared these oblations for you, accept them! Come hither with your most blessed protection, and give us health and wealth without fail!
The soma-loving Fathers have been called hither to their dear viands which are placed on the grass. Let them approach, let them listen, let them bless, let them protect us!
Rig-veda, x. 15.

The full development of the worship of the ancestors and the appointment of the three kinds of sraddha for ancestors in general (nitya); for the spiritual embodiment of a recently deceased father (naimittika); or as a work of merit (kamya) belong to later Hinduism. There are full descriptions of this worship in the Brahmanas and Sutras. The Epics, the Law-books and the Puranas constantly refer to it. It is at the root of the worship of many a modern deity who is in reality some hero or sage deified.[^3]

Hindu customs of inheritance and marriage are closely related to ancestor worship. Speaking generally, he who has the right to perform the funeral ceremonies and the annual sraddha for the dead has part in the dead man’s possessions.