Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/404

352 most widely worshipped are not mentioned, and there are prayers to gods whose names are entirely unknown to modern Hindus. The Vedas are collections of hymns, prayers, and teachings, written doubtless by a number of persons called Rishis, through whom they are said to have been revealed. The date of their composition is probably to be set at about thirteen hundred years before Christ, the age of the Judges of Israel. The worship taught is domestic, contemplating devotion in the family and the house, rather than in the temple. They direct offerings to fire, and invocations of the elements, the deities of fire, wind, the seasons, the sun, and the moon. Idol-worship is allowed, but only because the vulgar and uneducated cannot worship an unseen god.

But, it will be asked, if the religion of India as it now is cannot be found in the Vedas, where is it to be found? To this we answer that the Hindus have other sacred books, though of a sacredness inferior to that of the four Vedas, called Upa-vedas, Ved-angas, Upangas, and Purannas. Of these, the eighteen Purannas are the books really known to the people. They contain poems, histories, theo-