Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/112

78 traditionally learnt by rote and preserved in those families.

It is to these and other venerable houses that the Aryan world owes the preservation of the most ancient compositions of the Aryan race. From century to century the hymns were handed down without break or intermission, and the youths of the priestly houses spent the prime of their life in learning by rote the sacred songs from the lips of their gray-headed sires. It was thus that the inestimable treasure, the Rig-Veda, was preserved for hundreds of years.

In course of time the priests boldly grappled with the deeper mysteries of nature, they speculated about creation and about the future world, and they resolved the nature-gods into the Supreme Deity.

"That all-wise Father saw clearly, and after due reflection created the sky and the earth in their watery form and touching each other. When their boundaries were stretched afar, then the sky and the earth became separated.

"He who is the Creator of all is great; he creates and supports all, he is above all and sees all. He is beyond the seat of the seven Rishis. So the wise men say, and the wise men obtain fulfilment of all their desires.

"He who has given us life, he who is the Creator, he who knows all the places in this universe—he is one, although he bears the names of many gods. Other beings wish to know of him.

"You cannot comprehend him who has created all