Page:Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Purānic.djvu/30

 the Deity, is termed its Rishi ; and the object with which it is concerned is its devata—a word which generally means a 'deity', but the meaning of which, in its reference to mantras, must not always be taken literally, as there are hymns in which not gods nor deified beings, but, for instance, a sacrificial post, weapons, etc., invoked, are considered as the devata." It should, however, be noticed that the deifying of a "sacrificial post" or a "weapon" is in perfect harmony with the general pantheistic notions which prevailed amongst the people then as now; so that there is nothing unnatural according to their religious ideas in speaking even of inanimate objects as deities. There is little doubt that the Brāhmanas are more recent than the Sanhitas.

The Vedas have not come down to the present time without considerable dispute as to the text. As might have been expected, seeing that this teaching was given orally, discrepancies arose. One account mentions no less than twenty-one versions (Sākhās) of the Rig Veda ; another gives five of the Rig Veda, forty-two of the Yajur Veda, mentions twelve out of a thousand of the Sāman-Veda, and twelve of the Atharva-Veda. And as each school believed that it possessed the true Veda, it anathematized those who taught and followed any other. The Rig Veda Sanhita that has survived to the present age is that of one school only, the Sākala ; the Yajur-Veda is that of three schools; the Sāma-Veda is that of perhaps two, and the Atharva-Veda of one only.

"The history of the Yajur-Veda differs in so far from that of the other Vedas, as it is marked by a